


Beyond Good and Ego

by Karmic Acumen (Karmic_Acumen)



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Family, Gen, Magic, Science Fiction, Spiritual, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 97,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23366620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karmic_Acumen/pseuds/Karmic%20Acumen
Summary: There are people and powers in the Cosmos that notice and look into the shadows of possible futures and times undone as a matter of course. One doesn’t even need to travel beyond Earth to find them. Sadly for all but one of the parties involved, one wholly intended consequence of this is that a close encounter of the third kind ends up overlapping a DMT trip.
Relationships: J'Son Spartax & Meredith Quill, Meredith Quill/J'son Spartax, Peter Quill & J'son Spartax
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	1. Single Motherhood is a Statistic

“-. 10 November, 1988 .-“

It was a clear and tranquil night in Fulton, Missouri. The moon was shining, the stars were glinting, his guts had stopped spewing, and his mother was almost done dying of cancer on the bed in the room over there in the corner.

Which was good.

“Excuse you?” grandpa Jason balked, because he’d apparently said that aloud. “Boy, one more crack like that and I’m putting a stop to this here trip. Even if I have to let your mama go without fulfilling this last fool fancy of hers, I’ll do it and that’s a fact!”

It was good that she hadn’t died _yet_ despite them having taken her out of the hospital for this, is what he meant.

“Of course you did,” Grandma Meredith the Older shook her head, because he’d apparently said _that_ aloud too. Which, okay, is what he’d meant to do all along but he hadn’t been sure. He wasn’t all there at that point, even though it shouldn’t have happened yet with what he’d already had. Post-vomit endorphins sure was a rush!

Grandpa frowned but left it at that. “Come on, Peter. Your mama wants to speak with you before it happens. Which will be any moment now if I weighed things right, and I always do. Now come on. Take these fool things off.” His grandfather then took the headphones and mixtape off of him, turning off the Walkman and taking him to see his mother. She was lying sick in bed, weak and diminished. Also bald.

Not too out of it to notice the more obvious things about him though, unfortunately. “Have you been fighting again, baby?” So he _had_ gotten a black eye. He hadn’t been entirely sure. “How on earth did that happen? When did you even have the time between now and then?” He wasn’t sure about that either, at this point. And he hadn’t even taken the second brew yet!

“Now how’d you know about that?” Grandpa jumped on the latest of his slip-ups. “Have you been spying on your mama, boy? Now I’ve twice the mind to stop this right here, right now.”

“Oh leave off it, Prince Charming,” said grandma, taking hold of the one of mama’s hands across the bed from him. “We all know you won’t do anything of the sort.”

“But I should,” Grandpa grumbled, picking him up – hey! – and dropping him on the bed next to his mama. “And I sure as heck would if that fool Nixon wasn’t full of it. Bad enough he botched things up with his first great ‘war’ that my girl doesn’t have any more hope today than two decades ago. Now I won’t even be seeing my daughter coherent in her last minutes because she’s _dying_ to fight against that fool in his _second_ great ‘war.’ ‘War.’ Ha!”

Grandpa always managed to turn things to politics somehow. Or at least politicians whose jobs he felt he could do better. Which was all of them as far as he was concerned. Peter didn’t roll his eyes at him as he usually did only because he didn’t want to risk becoming queasy again.

“Who’d you fight, baby?” Mama asked him.

Peter shrugged. “Some kid who was beating on a little guy who ain’t done nothin’. Kept smacking him with a stick.”

His mama smiled weakly. “You’re so like your daddy. You even look like him. And he was an angel. Composed of pure light-”

“Mer?” Grandpa interrupted her, same as he always did when she started to talk about his sperm donor. “You got a present there for Peter, don’t you?”

“Of course.” His mama touched a small wrapped present and card on her lap. Grandma helped her hand them over to Peter, who didn’t have the chance to unwrap them because Grandpa took them and put them in Peter’s backpack over there by the bed and when had that gotten there again? He always did carry it with him everywhere, but this time he didn’t remember doing it. Weird.

“There. I’ve got you covered, Peter. But that’s just half of the present, right Mer?”

“Sure is,” his mom reached weakly for two large, lidded mugs on the bedside counter. Grandma pre-empted her though. She removed the lids and then handed one of the steaming cups to Peter, while she helped his mama drink the other one.

It smelled sharp and tasted foul as heck, but after the first stuff of an hour or so before this was nothing.

The minutes ticked by as all three of them waited for… whatever it was they waited.

“You open that package up when I’m gone, okay?” His mama told him after he watched tension and pain slowly seep out of her face like the last of the sunlight outside. She’d hummed and then sung their favourite pop songs all the while. Peter was surprised he couldn’t feel his eyes start welling up with tears. “Your grandpa is gonna take such good care of you. At least until your daddy comes back to get you.” Peter wondered what she’d say if he told her he didn’t care. “What’s that baby?” What, that he didn’t want anything to do with his pop, whoever he was? Did she mean he hadn’t kept it to himself like every other time? Shit! “Whoa! Foul things are a’comin outta that there mancave.”

Peter could feel three pairs of eyeballs looking at him like he’d just spoken Groot.

“Ohh…” his mama finally sighed in the sort of relief he hadn’t heard for her in weeks. “The stars. They’re coming for us, baby.” She reached for him then, half-blind already. “Take my hand.”

Peter felt like this was the part where he should begin to cry, but whatever he’d been given had long since started to carry him someways. The world was turning strange colors that were the same as they ever were, but it wasn’t falling away. Which was weird because the stars sure seemed to be falling closer. How weird! Wasn’t there a ceiling and several walls between him and them? If not for his mama calling him from across light and space, he wouldn’t know what to even do or say. But she was. And she did.

He reached back.

It felt like moving through the hypergravity of Hala, that’s how slow he suddenly was. Bizarre as fuck, he felt none of the other signs. Then he just seemed to drift closer and closer to having no speed of his own at all, even as the Cosmos moved and changed around him until it slipped from under him.

“Take my hand,” his mama’s voice came again. Which is exactly what he was doing, didn’t she see? It’s not his fault that the Cosmos moved in its own time.

Most of the time.

“Take my hand, Peter!”

With tears he didn’t remember welling in his eyes, Peter took Gamora’s hand. Drax then grabbed his other hand and Rocket grabbed Drax's hand. And just like that, the power from the Infinity Stone spread between the four of them.

Whoa! What a weird hallucination to have in the middle of a life and death fight for the sake of the Galaxy! He’d already embarrassed his way into swiping the Infinity Stone from Ronan the Accuser. He really shouldn’t waste the chance he bought with dancing another man to distraction by hallucinating about the future past. Refuge in audacity wasn’t going to work the same way twice, especially without extenuating factors involved! No homo, man! He was shocked it worked the first time, when Ronan could easily have just dropped the hammer instead. It would even have been the low-effort option!

Events thereafter proceeded exactly as he recalled them, unlike the memory of his last day on Earth. He used the Power Stone to destroy Ronan, Gamora used the orb to contain the stone, Yondu coerced the orb out of their possession without realising Peter had switched it for a fake, and they all lived adventurously ever after until Thanos snapped him out of existence three years later.

All things considered, it was kind of a relief when it happened. Bad enough that he learned Gamora had been murdered beyond saving, but he’d also embarrassed his way into destroying their best chance to get the Infinity Gauntlet away from Thanos and winning the whole matter. That’s what he got for not using his head when it counted, instead of his heart. As if he couldn’t have wailed on the bastard to his heart’s content after the last two seconds it would have taken to neuter the guy.

_"I don't use my head to fly the arrow, boy. I use my heart."_

Ha! He should’ve known Yondu was full of shit when he said that, like every other ‘lesson’ he ‘taught’ him over the course of his life. As if _anything_ could be done like that. To think he’d rearranged his system of beliefs around that pirate’s attempt to sound cool and suave. As if anything could be done without any sort of thought! Even when he was wailing on his space god father using his own power, there wasn’t a moment when he didn’t think of where and how his next hit should land. It was just a difference of which part of his brain did the thinking, not that it didn’t happen at all!

The moment he was faced with the worst father figure in his life, he started treating the second worst father figure in his life like he’d done him no wrong. He was a real piece of junk, wasn’t he? Like so much else that was left adrift in space. It was a wonder he hadn’t ended up on Sakaar like so much else. Behold, the abductee and child soldier slash pirate forced to eke a life amongst the stars! He doesn’t even know when to treat an absurd claim like the hyperbole it was!

Death equals absolution and don’t your forget it, you dumb Earth boy. You got your life stolen away by an evil space marauder who threatened to eat you every day of your life. But it’s okay because the one who hired him to do it turned out to be worse! Lie is truth, Evil is Good, and acting on impulse is most certainly not the opposite of wisdom everywhere you look!

God, he was a textbook case of Stockholm syndrome if ever there was one.

His pity party was suddenly cut short by the appearance of a bearded Asian man he’d never seen in his life.

Peter Quill did a double take. Where had _he_ come from?

“So _you’re_ the biggest waste of life in this aborted time.”

… Those words had no business _at all_ being spoken by such a kindly old man voice!

The man’s light/smoke/flaming cane swept up and poked him in right between the eyes.

Peter Quill zoomed. Peter Quill flew.

Peter Quill fell downwards into the stars above him, away from Titan towards a different Titan. A Titan that spun around a planet on the other side of three galaxies away, past interstellar mass and clouds and constellations. The gravity of countless stars and planets grasped at him but all of them loosed him just as fast. Until he was suddenly falling into a strangely recognizable planetarium and one planet suddenly didn’t.

Pluto tugged at him despite that he felt like he weighed nothing at all. He felt it as the planetoid tossed him like a slingshot strait at Neptune, who pulled and spun and threw him at Uranus, their gravity acting bizarrely like a chain of gravity amidst substance, motion and consciousness that he could and couldn’t fathom. The outer planets then loosened their hold on him without actually surrendering it, which suddenly gave him reason to start wondering if he could escape gravity entirely. He didn’t seem to have done it despite being dead.

Through it all, Power Celestial seemed such that even the Fragments of Infinity couldn’t unmake them. It expended behind him, filling and covering every inch of the space he tumbled through.

Jupiter had him then, the last and final waypoint of all celestial bodies that passed in and out of the Sol System. Peter Quill could see its entire function now, how the super planet decided whether a planet or an asteroid or comet turned further inward into the System of if it was slingshotted back out and away from Sol. Whatever death had done to his understanding, it was enough that he could see the part that the Outer Planets played in the great void. Their role in grabbing foreign bodies in their gravity and throwing them deeper in or back right out of Sol. They were the eternal protectors of the Sol System and Earth, the only planet in their scope that had ever given life naturally.

And he could also see their role in fertilising the Sol System and the globe, from the comets and micrometeorites that fertilised the world, to the superbodies that impacted on it in the far past, even if it meant ending and starting ages with each one that smashed into the world.

Then there was all the life that lived and didn’t live around those worlds and their moons anymore. The entire history of Titan played before his eyes in fast-forward as he shot past it, even though it felt nothing like fast-forward at all. He fell past the Jovian moons, then, and saw life and lack wax and wane across history on them also, before he fell away from Jupiter entirely. Mars proved a mixed bag of death and history too, as he fell past and beyond it. There, the less and more he saw of the remains of primordial Earth’s other half, the more and less he wondered. And so, soon enough he passed over Earth and its Moon as well, both playing forward and back across the loop of time, but uniquely _not_ showing him any age where there was no life on them at all. Neither within written nor throughout fictional history, whatever its early eons.

That was when he realised that Jupiter hadn’t tossed him into the Sol System, but across.

Without slowing from whatever passed for speed in this new no-thing, he shot past the historically inconsistent inner planets, felt as if he was being looked at as he fell _through_ the Sun, then he was out the other side and flying/falling/dreaming his way out of system and star cluster, a long, expanding line/river/current of Cosmic Self spanning all the space and line of sight he left behind.

The only thing left for him, then, were the Constellations.

He fell past Perseus and Triangulum, slid between Pisces and Taurus, and could see Cetus loom gargantuan ahead of him as he descended all the way to the foot of Aries.

Maybe other newbies would have faceplanted, but not him. He was old hat at void stunts, and it was all the easier when he was already slowing down without having to put effort into it. Finally, he landed at the lowest end of one of them.

Aries.

Wasn’t Aries his own star sign? The sign that he never cared about but always looked down on him no matter where he was, and wow, that was a weird thing to think all of a sudden. Astrology was never something he paid attention to, seeing as the stars in his sky changed from day to night and day again. All very odd things to think, now when he shouldn’t be able to think anything at all seeing as he had died. He supposed it was nice that there was an afterlife, assuming this wasn’t just the last hallucination while his brain finished not being a thing anymore, but this was just bizarre.

He touched down on a star. The furthest and last of the 49 SX Arietis to be specific. Which he shouldn’t know enough to identify by its Terran designation, but okay. He’ll just go with it. It was the size of a beach ball, or at least a giant beach ball, but it felt firm and almost flat under his feet. Huh.

A path of light stretched before him, from one of Aries’ stars to the next and on.

The man was waiting for him right in front of his landing.

He was looking at him with the sort of calm dismay Peter would have seen on old hermits if he’d stayed on Earth more as a boy. He thought.

“You, boy, are a statistic if ever there was one.”

The man then turned around, motioned for him to follow and set off on the path of light.

Well shit. His inner Wise Guy was an Asian Wizard Dude with a goatee, robes that looked way too dressy to walk in, and the most impractical headdress he’d ever seen despite visiting he didn’t know how many worlds. Peter gaped.

Because seriously, what the hell? What issues did _this_ mean about him?

But he had nothing else to do, so he followed.

And as he followed down the path traversing stars towards the apex of his Sign, he started seeing things again. A barbarian conquering the Hyborian Earth here. A convenient night-time assassination against a married couple there. A parentless genius and his next of kin being born into the world while skipping a generation. An implausibly familiar Abilisk shooting out form nowehere in pieces and being knocked away by a cane smack from the old robed Wizard Dude. Whoa! His inner Wise Guy was almost as badass as he was. It was almost enough to distract him from all the other stuff playing, sounding and hologramming its way in an out of being every time he stepped from one star on the path towards the next. He could have sworn he even saw that red-caped Wizard Dude falling sideways screaming at one point. Except he didn’t have the cape and didn’t look much like a Wizard Dude. Any Wizard Dude. And especially not _his_ inner Wizard Dude, although the latter did seem to shoot the screaming guy a weird look as he fell sideways by. It was a strange – heh, Strange – cross between a teacher that was fondly embarrassed on your behalf even though he wasn’t _your_ teacher, and the way his mom looked at him on her deathbed back in the day just before he was abducted by aliens.

Peter felt queasy all of a sudden. It wasn’t _this_ that was supposed to indicate some hidden complex in his brain, did it? He didn’t harbour a secret crush on a guy he barely met, did he? Or any guy! He wasn’t into that scene, no way in hell or heaven or whatever this was. He was a basket case for sure, but he definitely didn’t have those kinds of repressed urges, nu uh. No homo, man. No homo!

It was almost enough to distract him from the itchy feeling that bloomed behind his eyes, then grew and strong and out until it centred on the middle of his forehead.

Inner Wizard Dude stopped when they reached Alpha Arietis, turned around and waited for him to join him atop the widest and brightest of the stars they’d walked across.

Then he lifted his cane and hit the ground.

His footing broke beneath him and he fell up as he grew small then he fell down as he grew large and forth and out of universe, memory and time.

Suddenly, he could see Every-Thing and No-Thing from outside. Except not really because… because… because this was too much too fast too unfathomable as he fell and the part of him that was Some-Thing rose to take him and everything and not-time in a natural bid to become one with Eternity only to be pre-empted by someone who went and did that before anyone else he’d ever fathomed or run across in his death and life.

Then time looped forward down, forward back, backward up, upward forth behind him, then right back down and through the point in space and time that he’d fallen out of.

And away.

And back again.

And down again.

And back again and down again and forth again and through again.

And again.

And again.

And again and again and again until all left was a single point of undecided fate amidst a great snarl of aborted timelines. Only there weren’t timelines. They all were just the same, single time looped and knotted on itself one, twice, a hundred, a thousand, a million, all fourteen million six hundred and five different times. All different. All similar. All wiped clean of their six core colors within years of their rewind reset. All with the barest tint of green left as the same dash of color jumped from one fold to the next, vainly looking for itself even as its holder didn’t.

Until, finally, it did and the Cosmos rewound just once more.

The snarl shuddered and shook and seemed to break and pulverise in a motion so slow that he thought it would take an infinite number of his lifetimes to go on and dissolve. Then it got a good shake.

The Now split in two nows.

For an instant.

The they diverged in opposite vectors, looped up on opposite sides of that lone point of reference that wasn’t, looped far _past_ that last instant in the recent not-now that was his life, and came together far before along the not-line/sphere/universe that was and Was and IS all that there isn’t in the No-Thingness.

The two nows plunged into the Now at the same time in the same no-Time, then out again.

And in again.

And out again.

And in again.

And out again.

And again and again and again like a weird spiralling seam in the fabric that never wasn’t.

Then he fell back out of the No-Thing and everything that wasn’t nothing just as the nows threaded through the Now the six hundredth and sixteenth time and didn’t split again.

He crashed back on his mama’s deathbed with an indignant huff an hour before dawn.

“Easy there, Peter,” his grandpa said, startled awake but more than self-aware enough to steady him. Despite the exhaustion on his face and his reddened eyes.

Peter blinked and jerked in place, looking around in confusion as the dream became _really_ unfamiliar in its familiarity.

“Peter? You with us?”

Star-Lord blinked stupidly. “… I, uh…”

“Wherever you were, you’re back now. Took your sweet time coming back too.”

He was _dead_ and No-Where and he didn’t mean Know-Where and wait a minute…

“Peter?” grandpa prodded. “You planning to leave your mama waiting?”

“Take my hand, Peter,” his mom sighed softly, looking no more then and there than he was.

His hand – which he realised was extended just out of reach of hers again as if he’d spaced out for just a moment instead of a whole night’s worth of uncanny hallucination – was poised to travel that last breadth. And wow, the words that came to his inner monologue these days!

That too fell away from him, though, when he noticed everything about his hand he _hadn’t_ noticed.

That’s it! He knew what this was! Seems like it wasn’t just his life flashing before his eyes, he got to live again his life except _better_.

“You’re so bright, baby,” his mom whispered, putting words to what he’d just noticed himself. “Just like your daddy, shining with white light.”

Seeing her hand tremble under its own weight, he finally won against the slowness of everything around and in him and took it.

And Inner Wizard Dude overlapped him like a ball of light over his own and the light that spanned his self suddenly reflected the memory of a light distinct but similar.

“All that traveling the Cosmos and not one exposure to a proper shrub,” Inner Wise Guy said, sounding bizarrely like a kindly old man even while he was lamenting the latest of his inadequacies. Which, okay, was what he sounded and looked like the other two times too, but it felt so strange with such rude lines! “It wouldn’t even have taken anything blatant enough to rouse that Celestial side of yours. Humans have more than enough power on tap as it is. Pay attention, now, Peter Jason Quill. All it takes is Earnest Demand, Confident Expectation and Positive Will.”

The words seemed strange for something told by his inner voice. He’d never been so optimistic. But that seemed to be the whole point here, wasn’t it? Earnest Demand, Confident Expectation and Positive Will.

Earnest Demand. Show him what health looks like on her. Show him what Ego did to her. Stretch his astral body around and beyond until it overlapped hers fully.

Confident Expectation. The light that wasn’t his painted her insides and the history of the tumour filled his mind with full exactness. Everything. The health of before. The sickness itself of after. The bio-etheric engineering Ego had _not_ put in to make sure it ran its course even if humans discovered the treatment. What an odd thing to leave out. Or maybe it was that there was no such thing as a disease without a cure? A cure that was a painfully simple method only unknown because his grandpa was right about Nixon all along. But now he was just getting distracted and Inner Wise Guy Dude pointedly signaled him so. Somehow.

Positive Will. Mama. _Be well._

And so she was.

This was turning into the _best_ dream ever.

“Peter…” Grandma and grandpa both whispered, astounded.

“Oh baby,” his mama groaned. “Just like your daddy…” she sighed, falling out of consciousness but _not_ into death on account of being back to her pre-chemo weight and a full head of hair.

Dream all-powerfulness did good work, if he did say so himself.

“By the bitch queen Sh-shit,” grandpa murmured, astounded. “Peter…” The old man – who really had no business looking as middle-aged as he did now that Peter thought about it – carefully picked him off the bed and put him down next to the door. “Peter, I… you…” He’d never seen the man at such a loss either. Jason Quill then picked him back up and hugged him tight for almost a whole minute before putting him back down with a chocked sniff. “Stay here. Don’t move.” The man then went to check on his mama with all the care of a father shocked to find life where there shouldn’t be any and barely daring to touch his daughter from fear the miracle would break apart before his eyes. All the while, Grandma was crying from shock and disbelieving hope across the bed from them, hands over her mouth.

And so, just like he remembered it even if not entirely _how_ he remembered it, Peter Jason Quill went by ignored.

It was just as well. There was one bit to this dream still left to go.

Star-Lord turned around, walked out of the room, stopped, walked back into the room to get his bag, got it, then turned around and left the room again. As well as the house and porch and main yard until he was walking into the empty field where they would have had a second or third garden. If there had still been enough people in the family to work and need so much produce home-grown, which there weren’t. Then again, it wasn’t remotely empty now that he took a second look. There were all these weird critters living their lives forwards and backwards as he walked by. Not all of them were animals either, and there seemed to be two different layers of world-ness overlapping the real world besides the regular drudge and lowlies. They stared. They stared and they blinked at him.

Creepy as dope, he must say. It really should have been freaking him out, but dreams were _supposed_ to be weird as fuck so whatever. Weirder still was the entire timeline of that grain seed over there in the grass that he could watch in fast-forward as if he’d spent the past half a year being the thing’s guardian angel or something. And that was just one of several hundred life and non-life stories he could see playing forward and in reverse as he passed stuff by. Along with all their weird, glowy spirit things that were and weren’t all over the place not-as-sometimes. Like the floating not-a-leaf getting in his face. Shoo, leafy not-a-thing whats-your-damage. Shoo! And don’t forget to take along your friends, the annoying buggers. They were flickering all over the place. Floating. Blinking. Will-o-wisping him out of hearth and home.

Okay, _now_ he was starting to freak out.

He hurried over to the very middle of the empty field where there wasn’t as much stuff for not-alive-lings to cluster so much around. He hoped.

Just in time too, because that’s when the M-Ship flared its light in his face.

Gah! The light! It burns! So much light! What was the deal anyway? And he’d just finished going all Jesus on his mama and it hadn’t taken even a tiny bit of the bright light.

“Eyes would turn to you from a great vantage, little one,” Inner Wizard Dude said, his astral body unfolding from over his and whoa, he was still there? “Some stealth and misdirection is warranted, I’d say, before you ‘glow it up’ as you Americans would say.” Stealth? What was he smoking and could he have some? Stealth? Hah! They looked like bright eggs, both of them! Also weirdness alert the sequel, because Inner Wizard Dude kept talking to him in third person as if he wasn’t himself at all. Maybe he should stop trying to figure out what complexes all this stuff was supposed to bring to light. It wasn’t like he’d gotten anywhere with the soul-searching since the snap dusting no matter how hard he tried to be all clever.

At least he wasn’t dreaming himself into being as much of a pussy as he remembered this whole shebang really going.

Peter Jason Quill hummed to himself while waiting for the tractor beam to yank him up. And when that didn’t happen immediately – because Yondu and the Ravager crew were gaping through the traspari-hull in surprise at the nonchalant way he was bouncing on his heels and waving at them, dream all-knowingness was just the bomb – he pulled out his Walkman headphones and hit play.

 _~Aaaah…~_ That’s right, he’d been cut off at the best part! What luck! “~Aaaa-ah-ah-ah-ah~,” he sang, “~Hooked on a feelARGH!”

A large mass smashed into him and yanked him off and away just as the tractor beam locked on.

Peter Jason Quill gasped in shock and _pain_ – what? – as he and whatever-it-was rolled over the ground, hitting hard earth and soft earth and blowing autumn leaves and mini-fae and pixies all over the place.

The violent upset ended with him on the ground for a moment.

 _Only_ a moment.

“Peter, you okay?!”

But he wasn’t going to say anything!

A shock blast shot over them, lighting up the shimmering night.

“Of for-!“ Jason Quill grit his teeth, wrenched his grandson from the ground, stuffed him under the arm like a sack of turnips and took off at a run. “Of all the times to be tripping balls!”

Peter blinked owlishly at the upset even as he was ~ _high on believing / that you're in love with meeee~_ and eugh, no! No way is that the kind of song he wanted sung while held in _these_ particular arms!

That’s when a second blast from the ship’s starboard gun lanced where his grandpa had just strafed away from.

Jason Quill growled and doubled his pace. “Pirates! And at the worst possible time because of course they are!”

Normie Earthling say what now?

Peter heard the ship landing and lowering its ramp behind them both because the Ravagers probably didn’t want to harm their cargo and wait a minute! This was _not_ how it all went down!

Grandpa ran into the barn, barred the door while muttering “For all the good this’ll do,” put him down in a corner behind the tractor, and then dashed over to the far end to upend the entire pile of hay bales.

Which was when a very particular whistle pierced the night and a familiar arrow shot through the barn wall, support pole one, support pole two and out the other side.

Then it came again.

And again.

And again and again and again ten times in as many seconds until all the support beams were ripped apart.

Peter barely had time to crawl under the tractor before the roof came down.

The world turned a mess of hay, noise, dust that stuck in his nose every time he breathed in, and wood chips that stuck in his throat every time he breathed out. The racket of the barn collapsing on top of them did weird things to the world too, even though it didn’t seem as loud as it should’ve been. More surprising was once again the _pain_.

“Can you even feel pain in a dream?” he groaned at the green and pink jerboa/fairy/whatever thing twitching its totally-not-whiskers at the end of his nose. “Also I’m dead should any of this even be happening brain death means a brain and mine’s dust someplace or noplace…”

Whatever answer the jerboa/fairy/whatever thing would have given him, he never got to hear it.

The wood debris was blasted off him along with the hood of the tractor and a hand reached beneath to get him. It missed. Twice. Even though he wasn’t even trying to dodge it!

Finally, though, it found his ankle, which was when he was unceremoniously pulled out from his cover and out to hang upside-down in the air.

 _“Well lookie what I found!”_ Kraglin Obfonteri crowed unintelligibly in a bid to ignore stealth that meant they planned to kill all the witnesses before they left and hold on a second! That hadn’t happened the first time either. _“Don’t seem that alive though, boss, you reckon weRKH!”_ Whatever he would have said was lost on account of his throat being speared.

Literally.

A whir and gust of wind through the space above him was all the warning anyone got.

A blur enveloped him. A hand grabbed back the shaft. The high-tech spear of make unfamiliar even to Star-Lord wrenched out of the Xandarian so violently that his head literally popped off. And there was not one spot on Peter Quill that the massive blood spray reached because Jason Quill had shielded him with his cape before he did any of the rest. All while punching and kicking the brains out of the two Ravagers that had been flanking the first mate until just then.

Peter Quill stared, astounded, as his vision was filled with gilted crimson and armored synthskin covered by helm and plate of red and gold. What in all the worlds?

Cries of rage, dismay, pain and death rattles filled the darkness amidst enemy chatter that he couldn’t understand and why the hell oh! It was before he had the translation implant. Although with how – Crack! - convenient the – Crack-Crack! – dream had been up to this point – Crack-CraCK-BOOM! – it was strange that it would choose this of all places to be hyper-realistic. Bad enough he couldn’t see shit, now he couldn’t understand shit either? His ~ _Lips as sweet as candy, its taste is on my mind~_ and no, still not the right song and what was this, the blind man’s where’s Waldo?

Then the concussion grenade grandpa had tossed at some point detonated and hurled half the disembarked ravagers in the air and after that was murder he wrote.

Jason Quill paid no mind to his grandson’s bewilderment as he loosed death bolt after death bolt against the mob. Spear bolt, spear bolt, headshot before the pirates even reached the top of their unwanted soar, spear bolt and wrist rocket to the single barn wall still standing because the couple of pirates behind it were nowhere _near_ as clever as they thought they were and then Yondu _whistled-_

A shield fanned out of a bracer as Jason Quill _corkscrewed_ over his prone form and landed on the other side, glow-red tip lodged in between metal sections and then grandpa’s spear shaft swung down amidst whistling _just so._

Whistling sounded once more, sharp and startled.

The Yaka arrow jerked out of the shield just fast enough to avoid being smashed into splinters all over the lawn.

They were back in the front yard again somehow. Huh.

A fully deployed Spartan shield rent the ground ahead of him, round and large enough to shelter both grandfather and grandson with room to spare. Also, it was see-through. Or its inner surface projected what was on the other side of the… of the… Peter didn’t have his scanner to confirm but it looked a helluva lot like adamantium, hot-damn!

His…

His grandpa had just shown up dressed like a space Spartan to open a can of whoop-ass on space pirates.

This … this was…

Holy _shit_.

 _“Well spank me purple!”_ Yondu said and what was he _saying_!? _“If I didn’t know better I’d’a said that there’s one o’them Spartax thugs!”_

“Peter,” Jason Quill asked, his terse voice completely at odds with how carefully he laid his hand on his head and his cape over the entirety of him. “You with me, boy?”

… Did he mean it wasn’t just Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude that was bubbling up from his subconscious? Wait! That’s it! He had _also_ created an idealised version of his old man as a way to expose his issues from having been entirely deprived of father figures worth a damn! “…I’m _definitely_ starting to get a hand of this dream vision thing,” Star-Lord bumbled woozily, trying and failing to sit up. Then he giggled suddenly. He couldn’t help himself. “And that’s a fact!”

 _“Hellooo the shield wall!”_ Yondu cawed something or other. _“I don’ s’pose we can settle this here thing like two proper bizfolk.”_

Peter snickered and giggled yet more. Hysterically. He didn’t understand jack shit but he bet it was funny.

“I’ll take that as a no,” grandpa muttered.

 _“I gots me one good, long history in creative contract reinterpretation, if you get me meaning,”_ the pirate was still talking. _“Why, there ain’t never been a case where everyone who left after a conflict of interests weren’t 100% satisfied with my results.”_

“You can leave warm or I can make you leave cold,” Jason Quill said. Flatly. Coldly. “I will, indeed, be satisfied with either those results.” It was as if space Spartan grandpa and his politically incorrect grandpa were completely different people and wow, subconscious, you’re a genius! Even the way he visibly had to force himself from shutting his eyes in cringe was exactly what Peter would have expected this super grandpa to do when his mouth ran away from him like it was doing right now. He’s _perfect_!

 _“You see, friend, that there’s called an impasse,”_ Yondu said as his arrow hovered next to him. It twitched occasionally, betraying his unease. _“Here I be, offering parlay when it’s already been tossed in my face once!”_ The Ravagers left made noises of agreement, even as they did not slacken the grips on their guns one bit. _“And you cannae even be bothered to stick a head outta from ‘hind that picket fence.”_

Yondu Udonta was talking. A lot. That meant he was either stalling for a getaway or stalling for an inbound upturn of the situation via adapted contingency. The former was something he’d just refused. The latter was…

_~I'll just stay a victim if I can for sure~_

_“Well lookie here,”_ hollered Horuz from _behind_ them. _“Captain! Dare I say these here strumpets be what we call leverage out in the wider world?”_

The vid feed on the inner shield changed to a rear view of whatever camera Jason Quill had on the back of his helmet or someplace. Was it hidden in that huge crest or something? The joke was on Peter though, when the image cleared. The moment it did, the boy froze in actual fear and grandpa’s face went white as if it’d just been bleached.

Horuz. Gef. Retch. The three stooges. Manhandling his mama. And grandma. Dragged them out of the house by broken dress straps and their hair.

The world was still awash with fairy lights and the stars danced weirdly up in the sky. But despite all that, Peter Quill’s mood went as cold as his grandpa’s did. Suddenly the dream wasn’t that good. No no indeed.

“Alright… New terms then.” Jason Quill slowly stood up and turned until he could track both situations from the corners of his eyes, even as he kept the shield between Peter and everyone else. “You can leave warm or in pieces that I cut off you lot one by one while you’re still alive.”

 _“Hahaha!”_ Yondu laughed. _“Check out this here second total failure at parlay! As if we all cannae tell who’s it that’s got the high ground now.”_ The pirate sauntered on over to mama and grandma like his grandpa wasn’t holding a blasting spear aimed right at his head the whole time. “ _Seems to me like we’re ‘bout to have a nice negotiation when there ain’t no certain parties in a poz of strength, am I right boys?”_

_“Hoo-ah!”_

_“’Ere’s how this here’ll be,”_ Yondu dictated. There was nothing else to call it when his tone turned like that. _“You stop pretendin’ like y’all have any more control ’n me over this here predicament.”_ Yondu then shoved his gun under his stoned-out mama’s chin. _“I stop acting like I think you’re some random Sparthug instead of some special snowflake that done deserted and eloped to the asshole of another galaxy.”_ The Centaurian grabbed his mama by the chin none too gently then, looking at her face. _“Not that I can relate any, what with a gal as plain as this as the port for yer sparkplug if you follow me, but to each ‘is own I s’pose.”_

Grandpa stiffened with rage that visibly poured out of him. Literally. Peter could see it like he could see everywhere he glowed with light and everywhere he didn’t within half a mile. On the other side of the yard from them, Yondu Udonta jerked his gun against mama’s throat and smirked confidently. Because whatever else the pirate was, the thing about Stockholm Syndrome is that it never takes with even the best and worst of tyrants if they don’t have _style_.

The moment loomed before him. Fast as Yondu’s mood swings. Slower than a full turn of the world. Peter still hadn’t understood a word of what the Ravager had said, but he could guess what he was going to say and do next pretty damn well.

Give up the brat or we’ll off the little lady.

 _“Give up the brat or we’ll off the little lady.”_ A short whistle from the corner of his mouth had the Yaka arrow hovering tip-first right by mama’s eye.

Back off and he might let her live.

_“Back off and I might let ’er live.”_

After that, stand back and don’t meddle more in our business and we _might_ let the old broad behind when we leave.

_“Ya’ll stand back now and not meddle more ‘n our business and we might leave the old fish here before we’re on our way.”_

Now that we’ve established where things stand, I’m willing to entertain offerings in exchange for benefits.

_“Now that you ‘n me know where we both stand, I’m makin’ meself open to offerin’s in exchange for boons and the like. Aren’t I grand?”_

You can start with yourself, rich boy, and what all of that fancy shit you’re wearing you’re ready to sell.

 _“You can start off with yerself, rich boy, and what all you’re ready to sell o’ that fancy shit you’re wearin.’_ _My advice? If you’re any particular hotshot you tell me right quick. If’n you got a proper ‘nough bounty, there might just be in it for you somethin’ approaching term flexibility.”_

The moment loomed and Peter Jason Quill pondered pasts and presents. Young or old, free or slave, things always seemed to wind up the same. He could guess what had been said. He knew what he would do. He knew what he would say.

Jason Quill, though, didn’t. “So what you’re saying,” grandpa instead said lowly. Slowly. “Is that I have everything to lose and not even what’s mine to gain.” Perfect badass grandad say what now? “What you’re _saying_ ,” Jason Quill added when no answer was forthcoming. “Is that you want there to be nothing between you and me except revenge.”

Jason Quill spoke lowly. Slowly. Feeling every bit like the opposite to what the light and mild Peter was feeling that was his.

Absolutely _murderous_.

“Interesting thing about all things that be,” Inner Wizard Wise Guy said then, tapping Peter on the forehead with one hand and plucking at the afterimages of the Yaka arrow with another. The memory of its flight path glimmered into view mid-way through vibrating its way out of existence as though it were a musical string dissolving in the wind. “They witness all things that were and _remember_.” A musical string that contained the memory of everything through which it moved. And why. And _how_. “Now you begin to understand me.”

The itching that had gradually mounted behind his eyes engulfed his entire head, his neck, his spine, his limbs, his gut and all the way to the ends of his feet and arms, until he even itched all over and through everything that wasn’t part and parcel of everything aforementioned.

And so the moment loomed before him until it suddenly didn’t.

Grandpa’s feet shifted in prep of a charge. The Ravagers put up their guns. Yondu’s lips curled down in puffed up frustration. And one eight-year-old boy named Peter Jason Quill hummed in on the pulses oscillating in and out of a head crest and _whistled_.

Yondu Udonta heaved.

Then the Centaurian pirate wheezed through a punctured throat, fell to his knees with the most bewildered look on his face, then toppled forward dead with the universe’s most confused death rattle, crest arrow controller sparking uselessly from a hole blown wide.

The Ravagers stared in shock. Those still surviving anyhow, which suddenly got fewer by another pair. The two manhandling his mama and grandma suddenly fell all over them with holes shot through their throats when he went on _whistling_.

Served them damn right, fucking sons of bitches.

“G-Get’em! Kill everyone!” hollered the one farthest. Halfnut. He shot at Peter. And he didn’t miss.

But Grandpa didn’t miss either when he blocked with his shield. He also didn’t miss when he whirled around him and flourished his half-cape over Peter like a protective field. The lattice-weave locked tight and intercepted whatever blaster fire his shield wasn’t there to turn aside, scorching, burning and tearing but deflecting all harm away until Peter stopped whistling.

The last of the Ravagers that had touched down on the world fell over with his head sporting an all-new prick. The prick. That left just the one guarding the M-ship, so Peter breathed in and whistled low and long.

The Yaka arrow shot at the ship’s ramp, flew up and in, dodged every last port and bend, drove straight through the single blast doors it couldn’t, and finally took out Tullk’s right eye along with his life, such as it was.

He could have driven it through the transpari-screen right into the bridge, but he’d never been so well off that he would so lightly choose to damage salvaged finds.

One last time, Star-Lord breathed in and whistled low and long.

The implausibly powerful arrow of his erstwhile abductor yet-to-be flew back the way it went until it stopped in front of Jason Quill. The man who was astonished and shocked but not stunned and certainly not diminished in caution or protectiveness. He did not budge from the arrow’s path. Not when it flew at him and not when it stopped.

It was just as well. He’d made his point, Peter dared say.

His whistling tapered off and the arrow fell to the ground, motionless.

Boy but did these post-death dream ghosts behave realistically. Even Yondu in all his patronising self-assurance that never left him even when he was just faking till he made it.

“Now I’m starting to wonder if _I’ve_ been given something with my drink,” Jason Quill muttered as he got to his feet. He looked down to him though. “Peter. What the _hell_ was that _,_ boy?”

Excuse him? He wasn’t the one with the cliché trap door and stash full of all the fancy goods of his secret alien identity.

But the man had just fought for him and risked his life for him and killed for him, so whatever. “Yondu Udonta dying a virgin.” The boy replied, scratching his left arm – the only part of his body _not_ scraped or smudged somehow – in a vain attempt to make the tingling stop. “Not that he never got any, because pirate don’t you know. And sometimes he even paid for it! But his girls, man, they were always so basic that if you dropped even one of them in acid, it’d simply balance the pH.” He was actually proud of that burn. And to think he’d never thought he’d get to say it!

Steal from a guy, kick him when he’s down, then kill him and insult his manhood just to be sure. All hail the Ravager code! Or a joke version of it anyway. Maybe.

Grandpa shook his head. “Where even _are_ you now, boy?” But then the man knelt and hugged him, long and full and enveloping. It sent him on really long and brief trips through time and stars that weren’t his. And when the man stood again, he didn’t let him go and instead carried him to his woozy mama and wincing grandma. Even then he didn’t put him down, though, moving Peter to sit on the crook of his arm instead.

That was just as well too. Getting such an intimate view of that high-tech and probably ceremonial battle armor was more than enough treat to appease whatever boyish embarrassment he was too stoned out of his mind to remember he should be feeling. He even got a close-up look at the helmet unfolding from his head and turning into a mantle over his shoulders and upper chest.

“Like mother like daughter,” grandma said as grandpa kicked big, thick and peanut-brained off of her. “And now like mother like son, looks like. I guess we’re all of us forever doomed to get involved with them space man, and that’s a fact.”

Possibly-not-as-sane-as-he-thought-she-was normie grandma said what now?

But nobody answered his question – he _had_ said it out loud, right? Right? – because grandpa finally put him down – too bad, it felt kind of nice – and then was too busy gathering mom off the lawn and carrying her back in the house to talk to him. At least other than to reluctantly hand him the Yaka arrow when mom was tucked back in bed where she could be safe and stoned for however long.

“Peter,” grandpa said, slowly as if trying to get a simple concept through to the dumbest kid in the cluster. So cool! “I have some cleanup to see to. I have no choice but to trust you to keep mama and grandma safe. You’ll do it, won’t you?”

“Sure grandpa,” said Star-Lord to the ultimate vindication of every last bit of hate he felt towards his daddy issues and then some. “You can count on me!”

“I really can’t,” said implausible space Spartan granddaddy. Which hey, rude, but it’s not like he wasn’t high out of his mind so okay. And dead, can’t forget that. Besides, reassuring his delusions was basically the same thing as reassuring himself, wasn’t it?

The rest of the hour leading up to dawn, Jason Quill spent looking all through the ship until he found the location remitter. Then he unbolted, unwound and cut out the bulky machine, stuffed it in the explora-pod along with all the alien corpses – stripped of all the loot of course – and sent the whole bunch off into the far reaches of space. Peter watched it all through the window while finger-spinning the Yaka arrow in increasingly complex ways. He’d normally be ashamed to admit how many hours and days he wasted practicing for it with random sticks, back when he started getting his first solo assignments. But he was high as a kite and dead besides, so he wasn’t shy about it no more. Not even when it was grandma asking.

The weird faces she made at his answers were worth their weight in units too, he must say. And that was really weird of her, because who was it that had married the guy with the cliché secret stash in the barn stuffed with alien artefacts from a mysterious past? Granted, seeing as this was all a dying delusion of his, the obvious answer was obvious, but it was the principle of the thing. This dream-whatsit was anal enough to make him unable to understand alien languages but had trouble reacting as it should to this of all things?

How long until it all ends again?

As if summoned by the question, Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude stepped into view from behind him – where he hadn’t had any issue seeing him thanks to the astral body’s magical 360 degrees magic vision of magic or whatsit – and motioned him to follow.

Well shucks. Just because he was wondering when it’ll all be over didn’t mean he _wanted_ this cool dream to be over.

Oh well.

Mama was still not coherent enough to question her newfound health but fixated enough on her baby to want to follow regardless. Grandma, to the shock of precisely no one, decided it would be a great idea to help her uncoordinated daughter hobble after him and on. A weak, recently dying woman supported by the fragile, only slightly less feeble older woman that seemed to conveniently forget she could barely lift a wine bottle without wincing most days. These women, honestly, it was a good thing the sickroom wasn’t upstairs or dying wouldn’t need to involve marauding alien pirates from outer space.

What exactly was _this_ part of his dying delusion supposed to teach him about him?

Oh well.

He followed his Asian Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude out of home and hearth into the breaking dawn, then off on his recently travelled path across the field on the way to passing just shy of the M-ship itself. And his grandpa, who came down the ramp just as he sauntered vaguely by.

He did a double take. “Peter!? Gods dammit boy, are you _still_ high? Where the heck do you think you’re tripping off to now?”

The man then rushed after him as if he could actually join him on The Path and grabbed him by the shoulder from behind, bringing him to a halt. “Dammit, boy, don’t you go wandering off! I’ll drag you to your room and tie you to the bedpost, don’t think I won’t.”

In front of him, Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude took a few more steps, turned around, pointed back with his cane and spun it around.

Sparks from nowehere cut a hole in the air and sheared it larger and wider until it was big enough for all four of them to walk onto a mountain plateau a couple continents over.

“My name is Yao,” Inner Wise Guy Wizard Dude stood in the flesh and spoke to his grandpa. Not to him but his grandpa. “I would like to extend you and yours an invitation to join me at my estate for a year and a day.”

Life, sensation and physicality suddenly crashed into Peter Jason Quill with all the lack of grace he’d only ever seen displayed by that slave chick of the Collector’s mid-way through blowing herself up with the Stone of Power.


	2. Father Deprivation is Serious Business

“-. 11 November, 1988 .-“

The sky was blue. The mountains were covered in snow even though the Tibetan Plateau was green despite November. The pirates’ ship had shattered-but-not-really into some mirror dimension. And the man known to Earth as Jason Quill thought longingly to the years of his youth, when he hadn’t gotten around to being banished on false charges and personal responsibility only meant catching flowers tossed by his adoring crowd.

It wasn’t because some local galactic scum tried to abduct his flesh and blood. Or how the flesh and blood in question had been tripping balls in and out of implausible cosmic power in the time leading up to it. He wasn’t even shocked with _himself_ anymore for letting his daughter Last Wish him into letting his grandson join in on her last DMT trip. That actually came with the fewest misgivings, honestly, since his only real objection was that his grandson was too young. Not that there was anything resembling a prescription age when it came to doping your way into a cosmic psycho-trip.

But then Peter healed Meredith, which was a _miracle_ on a primitive world so far behind even the most outdated medical technology in the wider universe. Unfortunately, the boy immediately followed up by going off to get himself kidnapped by a bunch of lowlifes that almost took or killed him. Along with everything else Jason Quill had on this world to call his own. That Peter turned things around in the end despite being _knowingly_ _cooperative_ up to then was, frankly, less of a shock than the way he did it. One didn’t just _hijack_ a hardcoded Yaka arrow from a Centaurian controller.

The post-battle clean-up and strip-searching the salvaged ship was a literal relief compared to everything leading up to it. Even when accounting for all the dead corpses he’d had to loot and haul by hand all over the place.

So of course something would upend even that.

Honestly, the only surprise at that point was that it wasn’t _Peter_ who did it.

No, it was a sorcerer. A very high-placed sorcerer. The Sorcerer in Chief of this dimension apparently. Allegedly. Or he used to be, prior to handing off the title to some contender/teacher/student of his some six centuries prior. All so he could dedicate his life to ‘matters intrinsic to this reality that might reprise the events which undid countless times past if not better managed.’ It was a mind twister if ever there was one. Which unfortunately proved the old man’s alleged credentials almost as much as his ability to casually open portals across time and space.

Because of _course_ the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme would be granted to some geriatric fossil that grew up in a pre-spaceflight civilization on a backwater dustball. Not that Jason Quill had even known of such a position before today. But he wasn’t unaware of mystics and had even been acquainted with one before his banishment. The royal wizard, so to speak. Who was also the high priest of K'ythri and Sharra. But that man didn’t precisely exhibit the ability to open portals across time and space big enough to drive whole spaceships through. Not without being completely wiped immediately afterwards.

But even the obvious power of the old man before him wasn’t the first thing on J’son’s mind.

No. What really mattered was history. Personal history. And not the wizard’s personal history but _theirs_.

“You got Mer into psychedelics?” Jason Quill wasn’t sure if he should be astounded or appalled.

“Yes.”

… That simple answer had no business _at all_ being spoken in such a kindly old man voice! “You. Personally. Went and got _my daughter_ hooked on psychedelics.”

“’Hooked’ implies addiction,” the old man of the mountain said from his cushion, puffing at his pipe. “Soul Wine is no more addictive than cannabis is.”

Jason bristled. “Cannab – why you – you think she didn’t listen to you on that too? Do you have any idea how many times she got in trouble with the police!? If not for you turning her into the stereotypical hippie-“

“She would have had no chance at all to discover the cure to her illness.” Yao said mildly, interrupting him. “Not that it availed her ultimately, but without my intervention the odds would have been so low as to not matter all.”

A bomb went off in his head. His thoughts scattered every which way, like shrapnel. “… What?”

“The Sacred Plant is the cure for cancer as well as any number of other illnesses mild and severe,” Yao said, confirming that he hadn’t hallucinated what he’d just heard. “And you give me too much credit. Soul Wine aside, even without my direct involvement Meredith Quill would have turned out exactly the same as she otherwise is.”

The words felt like a slap over his face. Not just because of learning he’d been in possession of the cure for his daughter all this time, however illegally. But also because it completely destroyed his burgeoning hope that maybe he wasn’t _wholly_ responsible for what a disaster of a woman Mer had grown up into. The shame at even _wishing_ for such an excuse, not to mention so quickly latching onto it, hit him even harder.

But of anger there was plenty as well. “And you couldn’t have actually _said so_?” he finally bit out.

“I could have.”

He did _not_ hurl the tea table against the wall.

Yao the Ancient One beheld him calmly.

The man closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath to try and think of what may not have been said via that non-answer. When he didn’t get anywhere, he reminded himself that he was here under the rules of hospitality. He also did his best to remind himself that the old man had been the one to inflict the least stress on him over the course of his life. Directly at least.

It took some time and some doing, but he succeeded in mastering himself.

The Sorcerer nodded sedately at the end of it, as if had been waiting for just that development.

Alright. Alright then. “What is your interest in my daughter?”

“Entirely incidental to my interest in her son.”

He would _not_ shoot the head off the only new acquaintance that had not done ill to him and his over the past 24 hours. “And _what._ Is your interest. In my grandson?”

“That life, the universe and everything has been undone. Shifted back two decades and six hundred years because Peter Jason Quill lived and died as the biggest waste of life in the universe.”

Audacity, stupefied outrage, shock and indignation exploded in him so violently that only the dust of dull upset was left.

“Among a number of other things,” said the old man. “But those are a different matter.”

“That was ten _hundred_ steps too far, Sorcerer.” Jason Quill did _not_ jump across the tea table to strangle the other man for the insult. “Tell me why I shouldn’t take me and mine and just leave right now.”

“That is why we are here. Alone.” Yao said, still entirely serene even then. “That I needn’t immediately expend whatever mental and physical resources will otherwise be stressed. By parties lacking a certain regard for protocol, décor and hospitality that seldom comes outside of regal upbringing and poise.”

The underhanded rebuke hit home like a gun stock to the face. The realisation that he was behaving completely lacking in any sort of regal grace hit him even harder.

Jason Quill clenched his fists over his knees and thinned his lips. He considered the Sorcerer’s actions since he revealed himself to them that morning. How he opened the portal wide enough to pilot the ship through from the very start. Then proposed the solution of shunting it into an adjacent dimension to prevent finding or pursuit, however unlikely after the locator had been removed. But the Sorcerer did not take unilateral action. He instead waited to be given permission before he moved the ship to the mirror dimension. Even afterwards, for all that he immediately led them to individual lodgings on account of all but one of them being too tired, weak or out of sorts for a long discussion – and time differential between the USA and Tibet – the wizard held him to a different standard of respect and accommodation. The Ancient One even anticipated his desire to speak with him alone and subtly signalled his immediate availability without the others catching wind of it. Even seemed to _want_ a private meeting with him before anything else. Or anyone else. Peter especially, for all that the kid was completely bewildered and crashed to sleep almost immediately after Jason put him to bed. Despite increasingly confused and nonsensical protests at being treated like a child and what have you.

Décor. Protocol. Hospitality. Despite decades’ worth of lessons in the same, Jason hadn’t bothered to reciprocate any but the barest minimum of it. Faux pas did not even begin to cover it for one who was ostensibly a galactic imperial prince.

It was times like this that still made him wish he hadn’t crash-landed here.

He really had gone native hadn’t he?

“Very well.” But he would _not_ apologise. Whatever grand designs the Sorcerer was about to share, they did and would not change the fact that at some point he interfered in his daughter’s life and then _used her_. Used her for something to do with his grandson whom he’d just insulted to high hell. “Very well, then. Speak.”

“We can speak and we can see.” The Ancient One motioned for a tea set to float over to the table from an adjacent room. The steam from four cups carried with it a very familiar mix of scents.

J’son of Spartax grimaced at the maoi brew and dimethyltryptamine.

“I see you are no stranger to Soul Wine yourself. Familiarity breeds contempt?”

What, he didn’t have some way to be omniscient about that like everything else? “The last five times it didn’t do anything for me. Just made me dream about what my life would have been like if I’d been left with a fixable wreck after my crash-landing.” Which was going back to Spartax and becoming an asshole.

The one didn’t always cause the latter either. And Peter was always his son instead of grandson in those trips for some reason. There must have been dozens if not hundreds of versions he remembered, all of them going more or less the same way.

The one exception was the dream world where he didn’t have a fixable wreck and life went more or less like this one, save for Mer’s psychedelic sprees. Peter was successfully abducted and Jason Quill spent the next 20-some years watching the stars for his return at night. That one also involved barely driving away from being swallowed by a tidal wave of alien matter at some later point, only to spontaneously turn to dust some three or four years later. 

Honesty, the only reason he kept using the DMT after the fourth time was because he’d promised Mer in the beginning to go on the full set of twelve trips. Which was supposedly the recommended number for the full benefits to your self-awareness and psychology according to some South American shamans or other. Or so Mer had pestered him into accepting. He was far too indulgent with her in those days. Ironically, if the DMT did anything good, it was that it showed him what he was doing wrong as a father.

He always did _everything_ wrong as a father in those nightmares. He could safely say there were few in the universe that even came close to the kind of experience he had in bad parenting now.

“One of the most comforting and limiting things in the world is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents,” Yao told him, pulling him out of his melancholy. “Sometimes, through luck, folly or contemplation, one may piece together all this dissociated knowledge and open himself up the full vista of reality, and of his position in the Cosmic Day. Some become more of themselves. Some go mad from the revelation. Some rise above their state. Others flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age. But _all_ achieve full accounting of themselves, for worse or better. What is unfortunate is that the overwhelming majority of those so enlightened choose not to follow through on The Path.” The old man picked up one of the steaming cups and held it out, gaze intense. “And others do not follow _up_.”

Up? Up where?

… Or did he mean up _on_?

“Now you begin to understand me.” Yao picked up the other cup and brought it up to his lips, waiting and not wavering in his gaze on him even a moment. “This once, however, it will be another’s path that we will be following up on. You will know well what questions will buy you my fullest answers then.”

After a moment’s hesitation, J’son of Spartax accepted and drank full the cup of maoi.

And after three quarters of an hour spent watching the Ancient One prepare the Soul Wine in wordless silence, they imbibed that brew also and went on a trip like and unlike all of those before.

A trip of bad living, worse dying, and one bad turn leading to another in a long chain of misadventures that he watched in full from two steps right behind the main actor.

“-. .-“

For Jason Quill, DMT trips now tended to push him down the memory lane of pasts lives in former times that no longer were. Or so Yao had explained to him when all was dreamed and done. This time, though, Yao somehow changed things to make him follow in the footsteps of his little girl’s ‘Star-Lord.’ Literally. After the consciousness-expanding cosmic trip through color swirls and infinite eyes, the entire trip consisted of him walking after Peter two steps behind. For the entirety of his last life.

By the end of the first day he was actively wishing Yondu Udonta would come back to life so he could torture him to death with his bare hands. An urge that grew to levels he hadn’t even fathomed possible as more of Peter’s life played out with him unable to do anything but watch and listen like a ghost.

He’d been right. The people in the universe with more experience than him in being a bad father were precisely as few as he thought. Physical or worse abuse notwithstanding, thankfully.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be a lot of fake parents, step-parents, parental stand-ins and child abductors for whom physical or worse abuse was _not_ notwithstanding. Who made even himself of past timelines seem like a total saint. More unfortunately, one of those child abductors and fake father figures happened to have successfully abducted and inflicted one of the most traumatising and crippling “child-raising” “styles” upon his grandson in the most recent undone time. Even more unfortunately, one of the fathers worse than him happened to be the biological father of his son. Grandson. Now. Here. Yet _more_ unfortunately, that particular individual happened to be a literal god if anything was, for whatever that term was worth on this particular plane of the world. And worst of all, his son (grandson) Peter Jason Quill now remembered every bit of the life that he’d been led down before this one.

Jason Quill quickened his pace and turned his mind away from that downward spiral before he _really_ got angry. Soon he was at his guest quarters and slipped quietly inside. The bedroom was precisely as colourful as he’d come to expect from Tibetan tourist brochures. The large bed was even covered with enough quilts, blankets, pillows and sheets to shelter a small army if this was any place other than a mountaintop in the Himalayas overlooking the Tibetan plateau in the middle of winter. He’d have expected there to be magic providing warmth throughout the estate. But the resident Sorcerer either chose not to for some reason, or he did do it but the temperatures he was accustomed to were lower than what an American from Missouri would prefer. Not that he was one, and his constitution was better equipped to handle rough climates than Terrans were as well, but it was something he’d noticed. And forgot to bring up on account of much more important things being on his mind.

Meredith was in a chair when he got there, but she had long since fallen asleep. The book she’d been reading had fallen to the floor and the candle next to her was almost depleted. He smiled sadly at the sight. If little Mer was the best thing that came out of this marriage, the lifespan difference between him and his wife was the worst. But he knew what he was getting into when he committed, and he always honoured his commitments. Or at least he was never one to break a commitment _first_. Not that Meredith had given him any reason to want to.

He put the book away and carried her to the bed, then tucked her in. She didn’t stir.

It was just as well. It was not the time yet for him to join her in bed.

He leaned in to kiss her forehead, then left the room as quietly as he’d come in.

The Astral Overlook was far too large for a single person to live in it. Or at least that’s what he’d thought before he crossed paths with various foodstuffs, bedsheets and other supplies being floated about by unseen servants. Whatever the landlord’s policy relative to warmth, he did not seem to shy away from using magic for menial tasks or whatever else. It was the sort of utilitarian mindset he could always get behind.

Jason Quill looked in on his daughter next. Whatever miracle Peter had worked on her had restored her to the point before she contracted cancer. But it didn’t do anything else, like removing the drugs she'd already taken or adding the healthy levels of nutrients to go with it. She had a long few days or maybe weeks of purging and bedrest in her future.

He pulled a chair next to her bed and sat there for a while. Watching her. Thinking of the sort of father he was and wasn’t. He hadn’t raised no easy woman, admittedly. He’d taught her how to value herself relative to other people. He’d managed to instil a fairly adequate ability to read other people’s intentions relative to her. He had even passed on some of his poise and charm. But he’d otherwise been too permissive of Mer’s impulsive, feel-good lifestyle while she was growing up. Let her become absorbed in feelings and too easily dismiss logic and fact. Supremely ironic when considering that he only agreed to ‘join’ her on her DMT trips – the experiences that made him realise his failures as a father – because of how indulgent he’d always been of her requests of him.

An overreaction, he was starting to learn, to the overbearing and controlling bastard he’d been during his last dozens and some lives where Peter was his son as he always should have been. In a subconscious bid to make up for how overbearing and tyrannical he’d been with a son in a past life, he went too far in indulging his daughter in this one. Or that was his assumption. One which the Ancient One had carefully not denied when asked.

He really should have gotten a clue when his daughter started to care more about random shrubs and moths than for any person that didn’t share her blood. Should have realised what he’d done by not actually contributing more actively to the development of her cognitive frame of reference. Maybe if he’d been more involved and even the slightest bit proactive in setting some manner of path for her early in life, she’d have grown into a different woman. Instead of the free-spirited but reckless hippie that fell in love and conceived a child with the devil incarnate.

To add insult to injury, she hadn’t brought her sweet and perfect ‘space-man’ to meet the parents even once!

The father huffed and sat back in the chair, scowling at the girl. Woman now, except she wasn’t really, was she? Her mindset had stalled at that point where she recklessly devoted 100% of herself to every favorite infatuation. Even as she matured out of that stage when her latest infatuation didn’t live past the week. A dangerous combination if ever there was one. That’s how obsessions were made.

He could see it seeping into her treatment of her family now, with the eyes of hindsight open wide. How she took them for granted not out of greed or spite – he hoped – but because she thought material support was indefinitely owed to her. He doubted she ever gave a second thought to where all their money was coming from, and he’d never tried to correct that. First it was because he was still bribing various bureaucrats to forge a paper trail. Then he was too busy buying rentable real estate with what money he got from selling rare metals and the few patents he could submit without raising any flags. Meanwhile, he’d wrongly assumed the public school system included economics in its primary curriculum, but that wasn’t the case. Not anymore at least. Civics also seemed to have become a casualty of political reform at some point or other. Otherwise Mer would have at least had some idea of her rights, and more specifically where the other person’s rights began and hers _ended_.

Then there was the way she raised her boy. How she doted on him. Shaped him. Smothered him with love and attention and kindness and her favorite this and thats. _Her_ favorite tarts. _Her_ favorite outdoor spots. _Her_ favorite music. All the while praising him for every little thing, action and behaviour that fit her tastes and reminded her of her ‘space-man.’ While she laughingly dismissed or gently mocked him out of doing, liking and thinking anything and everything that _didn’t_. She was manipulating her own son into donning a manufactured personality of her own design. Grooming him to become a replacement for the idealised version of her ‘space-man’ that only existed in her mind. And she didn’t even seem to realise it. Even after all the DMT she constantly doped herself on, she didn’t realise it.

It was a shipwreck mid-crash landing. A trainwreck waiting to happen, as Earthers would say. And it _would_ happen if nothing changed by the time Peter reached early adolescence. Smothering single motherhood and a boy’s struggle for attaining self-hood did not a good combo make.

At all.

They’d be lucky if their family broke to pieces without one or all of the rest of them dying of stress or committing suicide. And Peter was practically guaranteed to end up a criminal no matter what.

He was starting to understand what an evil alien space demon would see in his daughter, Jason Quill thought unhappily.

Standing up, the man bent over to kiss her on the forehead goodnight. She did stir, but not enough to awaken fully. Which was probably for the best, he thought as he left the room. He had a _lot_ of work to do with her. Alas, it had to wait because there was someone who needed his full attention first. Someone whom the _universe_ needed to receive Jason Quill’s full attention first.

He found Peter asleep like his mother and grandmother, thankfully. But Jason Quill had also just spent 20-some years witnessing, emoting, judging and analysing him and his life. There was literally nothing left to ponder about him at this point. So the man again pulled a chair to the bedside, sat back on it and watched. Then, upon considering all the new information and implications thereof, rose and turned the chair so it faced the foot of the bed as much as it did the boy sleeping in it, before sitting back down again.

When Peter stirred, it was nothing like he usually did. There was no sleepy mumbling. No eye-rubbing while half-asleep. Not a yawn or groan at the sun streaming on his face while he tossed and turned. None of the ungainly shifting of childhood on the cusp of pubescent growth. Instead, he twitched and made to remove the cover while his other hand sought under a pillow for something or other. And when he found nothing and the covers proved too thick and heavy to easily dislodge, the boy froze for a long moment, almost unmoving.

Then he suddenly twisted and threw the pillow, quilt, blankets and every other piece of bedding every which way.

Violently.

Jason Quill stopped his grandson from falling off the bed with a hand, then watched him jump away from him with a sudden cry all the way to the foot of the bed.

Sought comfort from a gun under his pillow. Accustomed to sleeping on austere bedding. Fight or flight instinct activated by unfamiliar surroundings. “It is nine forty-three in the morning of November 11, 1988. You are in your assigned guestroom at the Astral Overlook where the Ancient One resides, an estate located in the Himalaya Mountains overlooking the Tibetan plateau. Your grandmother is asleep two rooms away on this same floor. And your mother is in the room next-door, sleeping and well on her way to full recovery.”

His slow, collected recital worked as he hoped it would, calming his grandson down from whatever flashback or dark expectations his mind had conjured up. Much like it had done to any number of traumatised soldiers when he had dropped by after a battle or other, for questions or praise or reproach or whatever else. Jason Quill did not allow his face to show any of the many misgivings he had with treating his young grandson like a traumatised casualty of war.

Peter Quill, who’d bumped his elbow against the bedpost, froze in the act of rubbing it and stared in surprise at the man. And his distinctly non-Terran garb of gold and red that he had donned. The child’s voice, when he finally spoke, was baffled. “… Grandpa?”

“Grandson,” said Jason Quill. “Peter Quill. The Greatest Pilot in the Universe. Peter. Pete. Star-Lord. Star-Prince. Star-Munch. Space-Lord. Mr. Lord. Thief. Legendary Outlaw. Honorless Thief. Humie with a Death Wish. Quail. Dipshit. The Biggest Idiot in the Galaxy. Orphan Boy. Companion. Flash Gordon. Moron. Titan Killing Long-Term Booty Call. Man Who Has Lain With an A'askavariian.”

By the end of his enumeration of every last one of his tiles of the late undone past, Peter Quill was gaping and pale white. “What… where-how do you know-“ the boy clamped his mouth shut and gave him a look that belonged more on a cornered animal. Or a criminal. An outlaw. Certainly not a child. “… who are you?”

“I am J’Son. Firstborn Son and Heir by Right of Singular Lineage to Eson, Fifth of His Name, of the Planetary Kingdom of Spartax and of His other Worlds and Territories Emperor, Head of the Spartoi Empire and Defender of the Realm. Your grandfather.”

Peter boggled at him, open-mouthed all over again. He had no words. He had no words for quite some time.

“Oh,” Peter said, finally. “Oooh!” He said as if attaining some great realisation, then rolled his eyes. “I get it now. I’m still dreaming.”

“You are not.” Jason chose not to react to seeing his grandson emote as a way to disguise scanning an entire half a room for weapons and exits.

“Right, pull the other one,” Peter waved him away with a sniff, incidentally scanning the second half of the room like the first. “If this weren’t a dream, you sure as hell wouldn’t be dressed like _that_.”

“Ah.” Jason didn’t look down at his Spartoi regalia lest he give Peter the semblance of distraction he needed to bolt from the room. He did smirk though, faintly. “But you have dreamed of me?” He would do almost anything to salvage the disaster of a person that his grandson had been reduced to. Even if it meant exploiting his coping mechanisms.

“Only in nightmares,” the boy scoffed and almost entirely hid the surreptitious glance at the items that hung from Jason’s belt. “And believe me, they were always the worst.”

“Because I was in them or because they ended with you being taken away?”

That finally seemed to take Peter aback. But he rallied pretty fast though. “I knew it! If this were real, how would you know that?”

This time Jason rolled did roll his eyes skyward. “It’s called deduction, Pe-“ and suddenly he lunged from his chair, grabbed Peter around the waist before the kid was even a third of the way through kicking a pillow at his face, and carried him kicking and screaming towards the door other than the one his grandson had been preparing to make a break for.

“Ah! Gah! No! Leggo, letggo of me yeARGH!-“

Pushing the door open, Jason Quill hauled his grandson into the biting snowstorm of the Himalaya highlands. Peter flinched so violently that another man may well have dropped him. Then he curled on himself from the cold lash of the snowpeak blizzard. Just in time too, the kid had a nasty bite even though he hit like a girl. Of course, the kid was _his_ grandson, so it wouldn’t be long until he noticed that the bite of the cold wasn’t really that bad. Best not to waste time.

Changing his hold from one arm to both hands, he held the boy up high from under the arms that he may be looked upon by the whole of nature. A feat of cultural re-enactment that wouldn’t make sense for six more years, and that’s a fact. Jason hoped he’ll still be around for Peter to show him the cartoon when it came out and the penny dropped. Even if he’ll have to deal with the inevitable histrionics once he explained scene for scene everything that was wrong with that particular piece of Earthern propaganda.

Peter made a valiant and not entirely inept attempt to claw, punch, bite and kick his way free, but his eight-year-old body was nothing before the length of a full grown warrior’s arms and skill gathered over the course of a hundred years.

Jason Quill stepped back into the room and pulled the balcony door shut while wishing the pirate was alive for him to burn alive.

Then he set Peter on the ground.

“Let GO of me!” Peter lurched back so far and so fast that he crashed back into the side of the bed.

Jason let him. That should be enough to make his point. He needed a moment to himself anyway. A moment and distance to push down all the disgust he felt at having had to imitate Yondu Udonta even that little. But Jason Quill would do almost anything to rebuild the shell of a person that his grandson had been turned into. Even if it meant poking and exploiting his many complexes and issues on account of Peter having no other way to relate to other people in anything resembling a productive way.

“Have you had many waking dreams where you were so _helpless_ , grandson mine?”

“Stay away!” Peter yelled with frozen crystals at the corners of his eyes, pulling a quad blaster on him. His quad blaster. “Stay away from me, whoever you are. _Whatever_ you are.”

Jason Quill stood and pondered his grandson’s teary eyes. Probably just the sudden gust of cold air to the face, he decided.

Peter Quill backed away towards the door, not leaving him out of his sights.

Jason Quill stood and watched.

Peter turned his body sideways as he neared the door to hide the breaching charge. His breaching charge.

Jason stood and waited.

Peter suddenly hurled his shock net at him, armed the charge and took cover next to the wall by the door, covering his ears as the charge went off.

Jason stood, ignored how the net broke to bits half-way to him, and watched as the breaching charge sputtered and gave off the poorest, saddest whine.

Peter Quill looked at the door in disbelief. The disbelief got worse when he whirled around to hold him at gunpoint again only to see the scattered remains of the ‘net’ he’d tossed. The look on the boy’s face would have been a most comical sight in any other situation. Doubly so when he pointed the gun at the ground and fired. Or tried. But of course, nothing happened. It was a flash-printed dud.

Peter Quill looked at Jason Quill in outraged disbelief.

The man crossed his arms and looked down on the boy with complete parental condescension. “You didn’t really expect me to put live guns where my 8-year-old grandson could palm them, did you?”

“Ooooh!” Peter dropped on his behind and groaned dramatically. “Jesus. Fuck me, I’m dead aren’t I? I have to be, because this is hell!”

And here he’d thought he was the idealised version of himself, meant to expose Peter’s issues from living almost his whole life entirely deprived of father figures worth a damn.

For a while, they just stood or sat there. Peter because of whatever was going on in his mind. Jason because he didn’t want to spook him into a run.

Eventually, Peter climbed to his feet and looked at the fake breaching charge on the door.

Jason didn’t move.

“I want to see mom.”

“The door’s not locked.”

There was an awkward silence.

Then Peter went utterly red-faced in embarrassment. Embarrassment which he tried to escape by dignifiedly walking out of the room as fast as he could.

Jason followed sedately and cleared his throat once he was in the hall. “Wrong way, Pete.”

Peter stopped in place, stiffly turned around and walked the other way without looking at him.

It should have been funny. It _was_ funny, but Jason didn’t have it in him to laugh. “First door on the right.”

Fortunately, Peter didn’t barge into the room, choosing instead to open the door quietly and slip inside on silent feet.

When Jason followed him in, it was to find him stood at the bedside watching Meredith. Stood and watched her for a long time, making to reach for her at points only to stop. His breath hitched ever other time he did, even though he didn’t say anything at all. What could be going through his mind? Eventually, Peter managed to make contact. Laid his hand on hers. Held it for a time. Then he let go and slowly reached up for her face. Meredith sighed softly at his touch but didn’t wake.

Then Peter staggered away, turned around and ran out of the room, hall and building entirely.

Jason followed at a regular walk. He caught up to Peter just outside, at the top of the long staircase leading down along the mountainside. The boy was staring around in bewilderment that probably had almost nothing to do with the unfamiliar vista. He was also rubbing his arms in a vain attempt to generate warmth. Perhaps his human side had predominated relative to tolerance of extreme temperatures. More likely, though, is body was just having trouble initiating thermogenesis due to the vast divergence exposure to the cold air. The local sleepwear was fairly sturdy, but it did lack coverage for the hands, feet and head.

With a sigh, Jason Quill strode forward and wrapped his suddenly sputtering grandson in his semi-cape, all the way to the soles and back until he looked like a cocoon of red and gold. Then he took off his mantelet, dropped it over the head of the boy to lie around his neck, and activated its transformation function from mantle to helm. The end result was a small lump of human smothered in lattice-weave with a crested helmet on top so large that he looked like a bobblehead.

Jason Quill then sat down next to his grandson at the top of the stairs, carefully not cracking a smile at the controlled crash that Peter underwent on account of having his legs all rolled up.

Soon, though, Peter must have reached the conclusion that he could live with it if it gave him back some warmth, so he settled down.

Jason wanted very much to reach out and pull him near, but he refrained. Best to wait until he knew where his grandson stood, what with his remembered experiences and whatever strange mix became of his manchildish memories and prebubescent mind. Probably something frail but bold. Because neuroplasticity, don’t you know.

But the kid didn’t say or do anything besides sit there huddled down with his head bowed, looking wherever he might be looking behind that opaque helmet front.

The man wondered about his grandson’s position. His emotions. His thoughts right now. What it would be like to effectively time travel to the past, realise your unique position and assume to be the sole possessor of unspeakable secrets, only to then wake up to someone who already knows everything you do. Cheated, J’son suspected. That’s how he must feel.

But that was alright. Life was unfair. Learning that truth was just part of becoming a man.

The real issue was the monumental responsibility that was now on his shoulders. Jason’s own shoulders, that is. Somehow, he now had to turn this boy into a god in time to mitigate the latest attempt by the universe to go to hell in a handbasket. Preferably one capable and willing to take some time out of whatever he’ll be doing in the interim to eliminate the threat posed by his father. All while hopefully not going the same way as said father over it being just so _hard_ and _lonely_ to be the universe’s special snowflake that there is no other choice besides becoming cancer.

Gods, honestly. It was things like this that got him in trouble back when youth and idealism made him share his thoughts on the cults of Sharra and K'ythri back home. And didn’t _that_ ever cause the motherlode of all overreactions. It was the first time that made him wonder if people really were generally dumb. They thought he was a heretic and then an atheist just because he called their churches and temples a bunch of money-laundering confections. Honestly! It was called “being right” not “being a heretic” and certainly not “being an atheist.” It wasn’t rocket science. As someone who understood it and religious sentiment both, he could fully attest to that truth.

Incidentally, if your god can be corralled by temple walls your god is a cuck.

“This is real, isn’t it?”

Or maybe he was giving his kid too much credit when he was still lagging twenty steps behind.

“Yes it is.”

“… Are you sure?” Peter asked, voice muffled, hoarse and shivery. Probably from the cold. “Because time travel is a bit out of left field, even for me.”

“That’s not what happened.” He carefully didn’t react to the sudden spike in Peter’s attention that he could somehow feel. “What happened is that the Ancient One of around six hundred years ago recalled the doomed timeline you remember, when your mom died of cancer and never got into psychedelics and you were taken away from us.” _By those piles of trash_ , but he didn’t say so. He also didn’t overtly react to the dread summoned up by that thought either. “So he’s been doing things in the background to prepare for it. Which apparently includes getting your mom into psychedelics so she’d get _you_ into psychedelics. Which culminated in you going on a DMT trip and remembering your last past life last night."

Peter was probably gaping inside the helmet. It was adorable.

“Time travel does not work the way you implied by the way, apparently.” Jason made sure to turn his voice casual and slightly puzzled for Peter’s benefit. “To hear the Sorcerer say it, the time you remember was undone entirely save for the record of it in the underlayer of reality. As well as people’s spiritual memory. Which is the case for pretty much every ‘alternate’ timeline ever apparently.”

“… Wait the many-worlds theory is real? Every choice possible ends up being made?” Peter sounded strangely sore about it. “Oh I so call bullshit!”

“You call truly then, because according to him that’s not the case, no.” Jason actually agreed with Peter’s sentiment here. If Free Will was a thing, infinite parallel timelines were indeed bullshit. “However, there _was_ a time when things and choices went a different way. Many such times actually.” For most of which he was Peter’s actual father and an asshole. “But all those times were looped back to an earlier state for various existence-ending reasons.”

_There are varied Dimensions. There is the Now. There is no foreordination. There are no alternate timelines._

“… That sounds suspiciously contrived.”

“Supposedly it’s not entirely uncommon.” _The Three Principles of the Cosmos are Substance, Motion and Consciousness, and we are at that point in the Cosmic Day when each wanes and waxes._ “Sometimes the universe just goes sideways so badly that the only way to fix things is to roll everything back to the earliest state where there was a more than even chance for things not to go sideways.” _What else other that Chaos could possibly happen when just one waxes too much?_ “And sometimes, if an entity or other has a sufficiently developed spiritual sight, and if the shadow cast by the possible futures and times undone is big enough, they can get an even bigger head start.” Like, say, if time failed to sort itself out fourteen million six hundred and five different times.

Jason Quill was paraphrasing heavily, but that was the gist of it all as far as he understood. Which was quite a bit if he did say so himself.

“Head start?” Peter echoed. “… Sideways is right,” He then muttered, falling silent.

They were both quiet for a time.

This time, it was Peter who broke it. “How much do you know?”

More than you by a factor of a couple of hundred. “Everything you remember and then some.”

“… _How_?”

“DMT. The Sorcerer hijacked the trip so I could watch your life.”

“… What?”

Jason didn’t repeat himself.

“You-why… how much!?” Peter squeaked.

“All of it.”

“All of it?”

“All of it.”

“What do you mean, all of it!?”

“I mean all of it.”

“That role-stealing, privacy-invading geriatric prick!” Peter screamed, immediately thereafter devolving into a lengthy litany directed at the Ancient One’s gall, looks, goatee that was obviously overcompensating for something and his entire family bloodline. It took a long while for him to tire himself out and for Jason to get a word in edgewise.

“Do you resent it?”

“You think!?” Peter hollered without even thinking about it.

“Do you resent me too, then?” Jason said, completely self-controlled even then.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do you resent me for being here for you now?”

“You’re not my dad!”

“I wish I were though.”

The silence that fell after that exchange was half horrified and half resigned. Peter was either regretting his outburst or trying to trace back its origin, that’s how much he’d curled up and how quiet he’d become. For his part, Jason was only glad he’d stayed on the ball and replied as immediately and seemingly naturally as he hoped he would when they inevitably reached this point in their conversations.

“Fuck, didn’t mean to say that. Why did I say that?” Jason’s earpiece relayed Peter’s muttering from inside the helmet. “Forget Star-Lord. My name should be Daddy Issues Galore.”

Mr. Daddy Issues Galore. Dig. Mister Dig. Certainly carried a certain charm, Jason supposed. In a what the hell is wrong with you kind of way.

“Didn’t mean to say that,” Peter eventually said for him to hear. “No, no, fuck this crap! You know what, actually forget that! Why would you say that!?”

“What, that I wish I were your dad?” Jason asked incredulously, and not because he’d been his dad in every other one of his past lives. “You mean you don’t? Kid, your dad’s Satan.” Peter flinched. Jason pretended not to be watching for it. “I am clearly the superior option.”

“Th-that-s not what I meant!” Peter shrieked with all the flimsy strength of his sharp, eight-year-old lack of vocal pitch.

“Oh, so it’s Yondu Udonta you’re comparing me with,” Jason scoffed, deliberately misunderstanding the question. “Don’t even get me started on that reprobate. Not only did he take you away from me, he also went and turned you into… this!”

“And what’s that supposed to mean, huh?” Peter said, becoming automatically defensive of the man who’d ruined him and everything about him and almost falling over like an embalmed mummy from his outrage. “What the hell was that? You just motioned to all of me!” Or maybe just defensive of himself.

Probably both though. Stockholm Syndrome was a bitch that way. “That pirate was a one-trick pony if ever there was one,” Jason scoffed. “Or did you never wonder why he never trained you to be more than mediocre in anything?”

“Hey, I’m a great shot!” Peter almost fell on his side from agitation.

“No, you’re decent,” Jason said dismissively. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you not making claims of expertise about anything else just now. The only thing you can make a claim to mastery of, and just barely, is dirty fighting. And that’s something you picked up entirely on your own because otherwise those fucking pirates would have eaten you alive. And even there you have a blind spot as big as Shi’ar, considering how often and easily you get blindsided by a poke in the eyes or kick to the balls by a pretty face.”

The surrealism of telling something like that to an 8-year old was only outshined by the pique radiating from Peter Quill in almost visible waves.

“So what? As if you’d have done such a better job!” the boy finally exploded, seemingly at a loss for what else to say.

“I am the Prince of an Interstellar Empire who’s mastered every profession in known space since I went on my Accession Training Peregrination a hundred and ten years ago when I was thirty-three.” J’son of Spartax flatly declared. “Of course I’d have done better. Not just better, exceptionally. In every possible way I would have made you _Great_.”

That, finally, seemed to startle Peter enough for words to fail him utterly and completely and not speak up again.

 _Son_ , Jason Quill imagined himself saying. _I’m here now. I’ll_ ** _make_** _you Great_. But it was too much too soon. So even if it pained him to hold himself back, hold back he did. Held back from talking and looking and reaching for the curled up frame of his grandson. Who seemed to be shaking and not shaking with unsaid words and too much feeling that he hadn’t the brain and body to handle like the fish out of time he had become.

Which was when sparks opened up into a portal right behind him.

“GAH!” Peter yelped, tried to jump away from the Sorcerer that was suddenly there, tangled his feet in the cape he was still tightly wrapped in and fell on Jason’s lap.

“If you will come out of the cold, I will gladly provide you with further explanations and means.”

The man shamelessly took advantage of the mishap to hug his high-strung grandson. Then he rose to his feet with Peter held close to his chest while pretending not to register whatever strong feelings were surely twisting the manchild’s face into ungainly expressions inside his helmet.

Because plausible deniability don’t you know. Always a wonder.

He’d have to do something nice for the Sorcerer later.


	3. Planned Parenthood

“-. 10 January, 1989 .-“

His old man’s hair was brown.

After everything that had happened since those 38 years he lived through that one night, that’s what Peter Jason Quill was most hung up about. Not the time travel or whatever it was. Not the magic. Not that he’d killed Yondu and everyone else in the Ravagers he’d been close to in another time. Not even the fact that his grandfather was the prince of a space empire from another galaxy. No, it was the color of his grandpa’s hair. Or, rather, the fact that it now had color at all instead of being the wispy gray of old age that he remembered. New length of hair had grown and the gray had been cut off within a month of their arrival at the Overlook. Which was around three weeks longer than it took grandpa’s wrinkles to fade after he stopped applying whatever he did to make himself look old.

His grandpa’s hair was brown like his.

It was official. Peter’s priorities were fucked up beyond all recognition.

“The Accession Peregrination is a system where the heir to the throne is brought up on dozens of the Empire's planets, working many professions,” Jason Quill said early on when he noticed him staring one time too many. He was incredibly observant, Peter had quickly come to learn. Or remember. Always guessed what he was thinking. “Servant, miner, poet, soldier, pilot, you name it and I’ve probably done it.” Grandpa Jason Quill was weirdly wry when he said that. Almost sarcastic. Made Peter feel like there was important stuff not being said. “Being that I was a public figure that still needed constant protection and surveillance, though, you couldn’t do that without some measure of discretion. Becoming an infiltrator and spy was the first thing I learned.”

The first thing of many, as it would become increasingly clear with every hour, day and week that passed. Not because of any stories his grandpa told or any claims or boasts he made. Not because of how good he was at reading and anticipating people. Which _should_ have ranked higher in Peter’s mind. Grandpa Jason hadn’t even infringed on the privacy of his room without asking permission after that first time. It took him seeing how badly Peter had reacted _once_ for him to instantly make the connection to… well, _things_. No, what stood out was the way his grandpa looked at him whenever Peter went out of his way to prove he wasn’t just some kid. It didn’t matter what he did or how he did it. It didn’t matter how quick and dirty he fought. It didn’t matter how well he shot. It didn’t matter when he demonstrated five different ways to take a man down and shot a moving target eight out of ten times during the first training session. Every time it was the same. Every time the old man only looked at him the same way. Every time it was the same mix of vexed, fond and indulgent.

Indulgent!

It wouldn’t be so bad if his grandpa wasn’t so obviously _good_ at everything. How capable he proved every time he tested Peter in something. He was beyond him in every ability. He saw so easily through every weakness in his skills, glaring or not. He easily and _quickly_ catalogued every strength and weakness in something he’d say or do then lay out a full critique right there on the spot. And all the while he was so _indulgent_ every time Peter tried to impress him – to shut him up! – or at least wipe that _indulgent_ smile from his face. Spotting a mark, close quarter fighting, trailing a target, shooting a gun, driving a car, flying atmo-craft, piloting spaceships, tinkering with technology, shooting in the dark, every time the story was the same. Jason Quill was Peter Quill’s superior in every manner imaginable.

And his grandpa was never even the slightest bit mean about his criticism. Even when he provided running commentary!

“Do you resent me?” Grandpa asked him some evenings, when he joined him sitting on the cliff-side.

“No,” Peter always lied.

“One day you’ll be honest with me,” Jason Quill would reply. “Then you’ll cry, we’ll hug it out and it’ll be alright.”

Peter always made a show of shuddering in disgust at the image, all to mask a deep inner dread and longing those words always called up. Also to deflect from all the other misgivings he always laboured under. Or, really, one misgiving. Namely how hard it was to keep a light-hearted front around his mom whenever the day’s events proved particularly humiliating to any claims of ability or skill he’d once have made.

That was another thing. His mom. She’d rebounded extremely quickly, which was great. But he hadn’t instantly re-bonded with her like he’d expected, which wasn’t. Even though she had, as far as she was concerned. She’d reacted to her miraculous healing by believing it to be a validation and absolution of every last thing she ever said or believed about a certain man from space. Peter’s acting skills had been getting a lot of practice these days. More than he felt comfortable with, and that was saying something. How do you tell your recently dying mother that the greatest thing in her life was actually an egomaniacal planet mind that wanted to eat her and every other living thing in the universe? Or that he was the one who gave her brain cancer in the first place?

“Something bothering you, baby?”

Don’t cringe, Star-Lord. “It’s nothing, mom.”

“Don’t you lie to me, Peter Jason Quill.” Meredith Quill the Younger could be perceptive too, when she wanted to be. Especially when Meredith Quill the Older was doing all the housework, cooking and anything else that would otherwise distract her, which was all the time. In fact, Peter couldn’t remember his mom actually cooking for him in either timeline. “Is this about how tired you are these days? Maybe I _should_ talk to your granddaddy not to push you so hard all the time. Doing your best’s one thing, but honestly? You’re still a kid. You should take time outta your day for that too.”

Don’t cringe, Star-Lord. Don’t cringe. Not because you’re not a kid, not because you technically _are_ one, and certainly not because your mom said that with grandpa _right there_. _Especially_ don’t cringe at the obvious jab aimed at grandpa for denying anyone but himself a return home or anywhere else in America. “It’s not that, it’s just…” He was increasingly wary of broaching ‘The Matter’ with her just in case passive-aggressive stopped being, well, passive. “Grandpa’s just so much _better_ at everything,” he finally moaned. What kind of life was this, when going whining to your mom was the least of the evils available? “I was never half as good even at my best.” More like not even a tenth, but even that much borderline hyperbole would be pushing his luck. His mom was already sceptical about the past life thing, having never had anything similar occur on her many DMT trips. “It’ll take me years to get as good as he is.”

“Who said you had to?” She all too blithely asked while filling his plate for him. “You’re not _him_.”

The emphasis on that last word rung louder than grandpa’s faked nonchalance and grandma’s disapproving stare combined. The echo of it lingered for the rest of dinner, and Peter wondered if there was another _him_ he was supposed to be like.

What was he talking about, of course there was.

What would his mom say, Peter wondered, if she knew the Sorcerer hijacked their sleep to build training dreams for them every night after she put him to bed.

“Have you changed your mind yet?” Grandpa asked while they were make-believe fishing in a make-believe lake as a break from the dream simulation of being a miner. His old man had a lot of job experiences for the Ancient One to adapt like that. Or help grandpa adapt, since Jason Quill seemed to be getting the hang of lucid dreaming amazingly quickly.

He was referring to their first totally-not-an-argument, when Peter barely convinced him not to tell everything he knew about Ego to his mom. Peter had balked, explained, argued and outright begged the man to let him be the one to tell her. To which the man only consented – barely – in exchange for Peter taking every bit of learning and training he and the Ancient One issued him without even once complaining. The moment he did, the deal was off and grandpa was taking The Matter in his own hands. ‘ _If you want the rights of a man, you’ll get the responsibilities of a man.’_

“Not yet,” Peter said, trying to hide how much his resolve had wavered since then. He’d already tried to obliquely ‘discuss’ the workload he’d set him. Grandpa had flatly shot him down on account of _‘One of the core responsibilities of manhood is proving you can be trusted to follow through on commitments.’_

Peter had thought he had a rebuttal in asking about sabotage and backstabbing for the greater cause. To which grandpa flatly told him that he expected him to develop an actual way of life before he would even _begin_ to discuss how to ruin one. Incidentally, that wasn’t the sort of man he wanted Peter to grow into. Not so incidentally, Jason Quill said, he would never stomach inflicting upon his own flesh and blood the sort of ‘lessons’ it took to instil that mindset.

Was this why his ‘practical simulations’ didn’t include any spywork and infiltration? And had any of the others been sanitised compared to whatever his grandfather had done in his youth? Hopefully that’d change when they did something about his body to catch it up to the age his mind was at. The old guys _were_ planning something like that, right?

Before he knew it, two months had passed and the new status quo had become the daily routine of their lives. That was also about as long as it took him took him to ask the one, greatest burning question on his mind. Over breakfast. One morning when the Ancient One didn’t join them for the meal. “So when are we learning magic?”

“Hmm?” Grandpa Jason said as he pulled his attention away from the morning newspaper. Or one of them. The Ancient One was subscribed to pretty much all the big ones around the world. Somehow. Grandpa always read the news sections of all of them as soon as the sorcerer was done with them. It seemed pretty strange to Peter, didn’t divination and clairvoyance basically make newspapers redundant to a sorcerer like Yao? “What’s that son?”

Peter tried not to show the conflicting feelings that he always got when his grandpa slipped and called him that. “I asked when we’re going to start learning magic.”

“When are _you_ going to start learning magic, you mean,” the man looked back down at the propaganda – pardon, news – section of the Pravda. “You’re the only thing I’ve spent more time on since the day after we first got here.”

Betrayal exploded in him at the same time as a total mess of emotion from being named the most important person in his grandpa’s life so casually. “Excuse you?” Peter blurted.

“The Ancient One only teaches those who pass his tests, and his tests have _very_ exacting standards,” Jason Quill put the paper aside to look at him. While looking _past_ his suddenly scowling daughter. “So far he’s postponed his assessment of you while I do my best to make you what you need to be.”

For some reason, that made him bristle. “And _what_ do I need to _be_?”

“A functional human being.”

Peter didn’t have time to even process how badly that answer stabbed at him before his mother scoffed. “Don’t listen to him.” She said tersely, glaring at Jason before smiling reassuringly at him. “He’ll never be fully satisfied with you no matter what you do. Nonsense, is what it is-“

“Meredith-“ Grandma tried to-

“No, mother,” Meredith the Younger interrupted her. “It’s nonsense and I’ll not see more of it put in his head.” She turned back to him then and spoke softly while wiping some sauce off his cheek with a napkin. “Don’t listen to old grumpy pants, Peter. You’re already perfect. He just can’t see it. Your grandma and grandpa may not accept you, but remember: I love you just the way you are.”

“Horseshit,” Jason Quill said with startling crassness while pouring himself a cup of Lhasa beer. “Though not surprising from you at this point. Just remember – I may be resigned to you projecting your faults on others to feel better about yourself, but try any soul-destroying _gaslighting_ and I’m putting my foot down.”

“How dare you!?” mama said sharply. “You have no _right_ to-!”

“Mer! Jason!” Grandma shouted over them both, looking pointedly between them and him. The table became extraordinarily chatter-free.

Grandma proceeded to serve the momos she’d finally mastered making, but the mood was ruined beyond repair. And seeing as he had just been treated like the child he looked like instead of the old soul he really had, Peter was hard-pressed to stay civil until the end of it. He was so pissed.

His mom didn’t let him out of her sight for the rest of the day and outright steered him clear of his grandfather all the while. Peter reminded himself that he’d once killed a god in the name of her memory alone. That’s what he told himself every time he thought about her treatment of him. Her treatment of him compared to those around him. He reminded himself that her memory and songs were what got him through the day for most of his old life. He reminded himself of that every day he had to pretend not to be growing bored with the songs she got him to listen with her while he was on break from whatever studying or exercising he was otherwise expected to dedicate himself to. It wasn’t her fault, and the songs _were_ current.

But was it _his_ fault that he’d lived to be 38 years old and had listened to every last song hundreds of times?

Now, though, after the aborted argument at the dinner table, Peter began to notice a distinct possessive cant to her actions and his life. First she increased the frequency with which he took him on hikes. She justified it as it being about time she started taking him on her outings. But since they weren’t back home where she knew the trails, she needed a valiant man to protect her. And since his grandfather was never in favour of her lifestyle – which was true – and his daddy hadn’t come back for them – which wasn’t, if you counted Yondu and company – then the only option was obvious. “You’ll protect me, won’t you baby?” She said blithely as she led the way out the main yard up the mountainside. “Just like your daddy.”

Other times, when it snowed too much or she was too tired from the previous day or just not in the mood, she’d call him to listen to music together. Awesome Mix Vol. 1 had been thoroughly re-experienced, and Awesome Mix Vol. 2 was enjoyed forwards and backwards quite thoroughly. Peter actually didn’t mind it. His mom could make things very interesting when she got going about something she loved, and she loved her pop music. She was also a very accomplished storyteller. Every song they listened to was a song she taught him to sing. Even though he sung really badly with his high, 8-year-old pitch. And for every song taught she had a story, about hiking, exploring or advocating for things that couldn’t advocate for themselves. Always about the pure unsullied nature and its laws. Always a tale of the downtrodden speaking truth to power. And almost every time including a cool anecdote with his ‘daddy’ as the protagonist. “He was so clever, your daddy,” mom often said, when she was nearing the end. “So bright. He’ll love you, you know. You’re already so much like him.”

Considering everything, it was kind of a surprise that the song he wound up preferring most out of them all was Cat Stevens’s “Father & Son.” Bits and pieces of its lyrics kept popping in and out of his mind at the most and least opportune times.

Then again…

Peter Quill was _really_ regretting not addressing The Matter by now. Hell, he was even regretting not letting grandpa do it. However ridiculous it was to think his grandpa needed his permission for anything. Speaking of, he’d have expected his mom to make at least oblique insinuations about grandpa, if not say unflattering things about him outright. Peter was promptly shocked at himself for having such expectations. When had he started to think so little about her? Actually, when had he started thinking in _any_ way poorly about her at all?

_~You're still young, that's your fault~_

Unfortunately, his attempts to think about an answer were stymied by her demands on his time. Which, okay, weren’t anything he wouldn’t have been entirely in favour of had he still been the age he looked. As it was, though…

He lasted two more weeks. Then, during one of their inside days when it was too cold and blizzardy for anyone to go out (except the Ancient One and grandpa apparently), he asked his mom to leave off the music and anecdotes and play a game instead. More specifically, hide and seek. Meredith Quill, shockingly, agreed almost instantly. Whatever else she was, she took as good as she gave when it was her little Star-Lord asking. It made Peter ashamed of what he’d really made that request for, but he was committed to his course.

He waited for his mom to start counting, all but sprinted to the entrance hall, donned the heavy clothes and yak wool coat he’d stashed under the staircase earlier on, and proceeded to rush out the door.

It was windy and bitingly cold, but the gale was blessedly silent compared to what he’d been growing used to. So much so that he could finally listen to his own thoughts again.

What a difference leaving his walkman behind made.

Once he was passing the stables, he headed for the first pile of floating straw he saw and flagged down the unseen servant to lead him to his old man. It was hard to keep up with it even at its most moderate speeds, due to how short his legs were and how hard it was to walk wrapped up in a thick coat several sizes too large. But he managed, somehow, until he got where he wanted to be.

Jason Quill was near the lake in a mountain clearing just off the main estate. More specifically, at the top of the waterfall that fed it. It was a very high waterfall. Surrounded by Himalayan pine trees everywhere. Several of which had grown out of the mountain sides almost horizontally until they outright overhung the lake below. Grandpa Jason was on one such overhanging pine. The biggest pine. Widest. Longest.

Doing a handstand.

Peter Quill boggled. Stood there. Gaped.

Then he clamped his mouth shut, opened it to speak, and closed it back again before he startled the man into falling to his death by thud and splat against the hard top of the frozen lake and what the _fuck_? Did he mention his grandpa was practically naked? In the Himalayas? In _January!?_ He was only wearing shorts, how the hell hadn’t he frozen to death or gotten frostbite on his skin and… well, _things_?

Fortunately, the man was facing his direction, upside-down though he happened to be. Not so unfortunately, he didn’t interrupt his routine of… whatever it was. The man briefly opened an eye and shook a finger with his free hand, telling him to wait. So what else could Peter do but wait? He waited.

And waited. And waited. And watched and waited. And watched and waited and was amazed at his grandfather raising to the tips of his fingers and then pulling them back one by one until he stood upside-down on just the one. For a _long_ time. And then his grandpa flipped to his feet _towards_ the far side of the tree, stepped to the end, took a deep breath and jumped.

Peter Jason Quill watched and gaped, aghast. “Grandpa!” He rushed to the edge of the waterfall and looked down just as the man dove and disappeared beneath the lake’s surface through a waterhole he hadn’t known was there. The splash was muffled by the thick ice all around it and the waterfall itself. Even the echoes barely reached his ears because of the intermittent wind, but it felt brain-breaking all the same. “Holy shit.” He barely remembered how he got down to the lake bank. “Shit, shit, what the shit!” By the time he was there, his cloak laces were half undone and his hood and scarf had long flown back, exposing him to the biting cold he couldn’t’ be arsed to heed. “Old man! Come on old man, come out come out wherever you are!” His attempt to sound unflapped failed miserably. “Oh grandpa, what terrible humor you have!” His attempts at staying calm over the next several minutes failed even more miserably, and he was just about to start throwing boulders to break the ice or go running back to the estate screaming for help when he saw signs of life.

Specifically, a saw blade breaching the surface of the thick ice at an angle, ten or some meters away from the bank.

Peter Quill watched in stupefaction as the grandfather he couldn’t see sedately cut himself a new hole in the ice as if he hadn’t been holding his breath and swimming under freezing water for he didn’t know how many minutes.

For another minute and a half, Peter Quill watched in dumb shock as the saw cut a round manhole half a meter wide. Had his old man dumped it in the lake just to have something to find? What kind of training was this even!? This was deadlier than his worst unexpected space walks! Grandpa’s hand then made a brief appearance to push the ice up and aside, before the rest of the man rose from the water below without even breathing hard. He didn’t even sputter!

Jason Quill climbed out of the water, kicked the ice plate back in place – it was wider on top like a cork because of course it was – and stood tall on the ice, breathing slowly. And there he stayed with his head tilted back and eyes closed while the water flowed off of him, flushed pink all over his body but not a single goosebump anywhere in sight.

Peter gaped in astonishment.

“Peter,” Jason Quill said some time later when he laid eyes on him, motioning at some point to his right. “Think you can help your old man out?”

_~Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy~_

Peter closed his mouth, stumbled to where he was directed, and stumbled even worse under the towels as he made his way back due to the most severe case of male envy he had undergone in any of his lives. Thor the Thunder God had been bad enough, but now you’re telling him that was the sort of physique he himself could actually have had? That he even had the _genes_ for it. Fuck Yondu for kidnapping him before he could find this out, seriously.

Shenanigans! He called shenanigans!

And where was grandpa’s change of clothes? There had to be one, right?

The man in question finished wiping off the excess water, didn’t seem to even notice the icicles covering half his beard, laid the towel around his neck and gave him a long, thoughtful look.

Then he swept him off his feet “What the-!“ and sat him on his shoulders. Peter’s stomach gave a strange lurch. So did his heart.

“Grab tight onto my hair.”

“What?”

“Grab tight onto my hair, Peter.”

 _Oh shit_ Peter thought as he did as told. _He’s going to run up the path with me on_.

The reality, alas, was much worse.

Jason Quill turned back to the lake, ran _across_ the ice without slipping even once and finally leapt onto the cliff face on the other side.

Peter yelped, then clutched at Jason Quill’s impressively sturdy and deeply rooted hair while trying not to panic as his grandpa scaled the vertical cliff face without any tools or rope. Climbed. Heaved. Hopped. And occasionally jumped outright.

It was… it was fucking hardcore, that’s what. So _cool!_

_~I was once like you are now~_

If only.

When they were at the top and grandpa gently tossed him on the ground ahead of him, Peter half expected his mom to come storming up dramatically, incensed over grandpa putting him in danger or whatever else. Nothing like that happened. It was actually kind of weird. Bad timing used to be a really big thing for him. What had changed?

He rolled on his back and sat up, looking up at the man.

… Could that really be it?

Jason Quill finally dressed – in a shirt, casual pants and _sandals_ , what the hell? – and sat on the freezing rocks next to him, using his yak coat to extra-bundle Peter up instead.

“M’not cold,” Peter mumbled, though he didn’t put up any resistance.

“All that shivering must come from excitement then,” the man said dryly, patting him on the head. He didn’t immediately pull his hand away.

“More like fright!” Peter croaked weakly. “How did you _do_ that?”

“It’s easy to read you as long as I notice when I need to change my frame of reference from ‘dear innocent grandson’ to ‘adverse adult outlaw.’”

“That-you-forget how you know what I’m always thinking, that’s not what I meant!” Even if he was absurdly relieved to know grandpa wasn’t magically mind-reading him. “The lake, the swim-how did you _do_ that?”

“Training.”

Because of _course_ he’d say that. “Somehow I expected magic to be a bit more… well, flashy.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jason Quill scoffed, turning to dig through his pack. For food apparently. “There was no magic involved.”

“Badass grandpa says what now?”

The man smiled. He… he seemed inordinately pleased at the compliment. “There was no magic. Breathing, exposure, patience. That’s all it is.”

_~There's so much you have to know~_

Peter had somehow never considered that his grandpa cared about his approval the way he did about his. “Bullshit.” Jason Quill blinked at him and waited. Calmly. “I mean ‘no way’.” Peter amended.

“Yes way. This isn’t even the full extent of what Tibetan Buddhists and shaolin monks do. And there are a bunch of people with similar or better conditioning on just this planet, let alone in the wider universe. Mountain villagers. Everyone living above three thousand meters. Probably half of Norway. I hear even the scoundrels at Hollywood have trainers on call to condition their stuntmen to survive jumping naked in icy water and hike up and down Mount Everest while basically naked.” Peter wondered if a time would come when he wouldn’t so easily gape at every other thing his grandpa told him. “It really only takes a couple of months to train,” grandpa concluded with a shrug. “Even less so for us.”

Whoa. “So I _could_ be awesome like you?” Peter asked before he could re-apply his brain to mouth filter. Then he reddened. Dammit, he was too old for slips like this!

Grandpa’s face lit up with an even bigger smile though. “Of course, son,” he held out a sandwich and Peter pretended not to notice the slip. “What do you think I’m trying to do?”

Being too cool to be true and learning magic behind his back apparently, but Peter didn’t say that. He took the sandwich and ate in silence instead. Taking time to process… everything.

_~Take your time, think a lot~_

_~Think of everything you've got~_

The silence stretched. It stretched on and on. Jason Quill actually had time to cross his legs under him and begin to meditate, of all things. In fact, it stayed quiet for such a long time that grandpa seemed to almost fall into a trance. Almost. “Peter,” he said softly. “I have some books and a notebook in my bag. Take them out for me, will you? Use the picnic blanket. You can have any of the other food if you’re still hungry.”

“On it.”

He wasn’t hungry anymore but he spread the picnic blanket anyway, so he wouldn’t have to dump the things on the rocks and in the snow. As he pulled them out, though, he couldn’t even begin to guess what any of the books were about. Their titles were in no language he knew of, and he still didn’t have a translation chip. Assuming it would even have whatever language these things were written in. He could guess what they were for easily though. “You really have been learning magic.” Peter said, feeling deprived and cheated and inadequate all over again.

“Yes and no,” grandpa said. “Magic is an expansive, complex discipline and art. It takes months to feel, years to fathom, decades to learn and a lifetime to master. I have neither the interest nor the time to devote to it. That being said, the complete path is not the only path.”

He sure could _talk_ like a magic man though. “And the alternative is?”

“Choose and explore one specific discipline. Or in my case, one specific spell.”

“You don’t say,” Peter said, trying and failing not to sound disappointed. After everything else he’d seen his grandpa do, he’d though he’d easily master this field too. “And what spell is that?”

“Possession.”

“…What.” Peter blinked and stared, uncomprehending.

Jason Quill gave a brief, secretive smile but fell silent. Then breathed increasingly slowly until he finally fell into that outright trance he’d been heading for all along. Peter watched him. He thought the man’s coloring even turned a bit… less there, but it was probably just his imagination.

Peter decided to look the books over again. The symbols on them, the writing, looked even older than the books themselves. Which was a lot. Although they seemed very well preserved and sturdy. They had to be if the Sorcerer had agreed to them being removed from whatever library or shelves he usually kept them in. Old books went bad or broke to pieces if the air and light suddenly changed right? He remembered hearing about it somewhere. Sometime.

Fortunately, he _did_ know English. And Spartan, now. More importantly, his grandfather had taught him his shorthand. Not as fortunate was that his grandpa didn’t take particularly detailed notes when he wasn’t writing reports. He only jotted down things for future references and whatever he thought he wouldn’t be able to remember off-hand later on. Peter wouldn’t let that stop him, though. He had a golden opportunity here. After all, if you’re going to learn, learn from the best.

That particular entry of the unwritten Ravager code was actually about stealing but he was quite proud of his revision.

The notes weren’t much of what he expected though. There was a bit of a summary about what Possession meant but then it seemed to go backwards on the totem pole of requisite secondary powers. All of it revolved around the concept of the Astral Body. More specifically, how it could detach from the physical one – save for one hair-thin crystal cord – and go off to do… any number of different things apparently? It depended on what senses it had trained and – Peter squinted, unsure if the shorthand really was saying what he thought he was saying – if it had grown dedicated _organs_. Among which most useful were extra eyes because Dante was apparently not full of shit when he wrote the Divine Comedy. The Astral Body of a man in its base state was just a glowing ball of light – or, well, a glowing _egg-_ shaped body of light, if Peter could at all trust the memories of his cosmic psycho-trip – but it could be trained, shaped and cultivated for any number of things. Supposedly. Possession fell somewhere among all of this and sounded fairly straightforward on the surface. Something which supernatural horror movies certainly agreed with him on. But it turned out, how shocking, that Hollywood was really full of shit.

Possession was actually one of the hardest occult feats. One, because you needed a lot of WILL to go from Willing to Doing without Desire messing up your focus; two, because you needed a lot of self-awareness - extra eyes? – to see what you were doing while you were overshadowing something. And three, because you needed a _lot_ of Astral Substance to do the Doing. Astral Substance which the Astral Body – the soul – didn’t possess naturally. Or it did, but it was all allocated to… well, being _you_. Force that Self square peg into the round hole of whatever you were possessing – a trinket, a person, a chemical reaction, even a weather phenomenon that recurred enough to gain some measure of _identity_ – and you weren’t going to get much back that was recognisable as yourself. Getting back to your body and living without leaving it for a while could mitigate some of it. Especially in the beginning, since Personality arose from the physical mind. But really, there were easier and faster ways to lose your mind if that was what you were after.

There was, however, a way to gain what you lacked and eliminate all the drawbacks: making your Astral Body bigger, stronger, more versatile and just all around _more_. Which could be done by drinking (eating? absorbing?) astral substance and adding it to your own. Temporarily if needed immediately, and permanently with extended focus and self-cultivation. Or something. By the end of it Peter was paying less attention to whatever advanced concepts were jotted down – growing psychic eyes and tentacles, really grandpa? – and instead seeing scenes from a certain film series and comic book collection in the back of his mind.

Increase your astral body. Increase your awareness, range and potency. Cultivate skill. Enhance ability. Imagine yourself becoming more. Make that imagination real. Magic was real. Psychic phenomena was real. Vitalism was real. Mentalism was real. Animism was real.

Overshadow other things and you can make them move without moving them yourself.

The one thing you can always safely possess and control is _yourself_.

Jason Quill finally breathed in after not doing so for around thirty minutes and Peter was far too overwhelmed and aghast and astonished and short-changed to wait for him to even open his eyes. The boy jumped to his feet and pointed a finger at him. “You’re training to become a Jedi!”

Grandpa, you stand accused!

Jason Quill blinked back from wherever he was – and suddenly Peter wondered if that turn of phrase had a more literal meaning here – and then beamed at him.

“You don’t need to look so disgustingly smug,” Peter groused, turning away and crossing his arms.

“Boy, I will be as pleased and proud of you as I damn well want.”

Peter flushed, because a couple of months of good fathering were not enough to qualify as experience even if they beat those two days with Ego hands down and Yondu could go fuck himself along with everyone else in the Ravagers, seriously.

Jason Quill laughed at him and swept him up in a hug, spinning him round and round. Peter didn’t feel any impulse to squirm this time.

Much later, when they had settled back down and even finished eating whatever food was left in the bag, Peter finally gave voice to what he’d been holding inside for the past few months. “I want to learn magic.”

“Do you plan to go to the Ancient One behind my back if you don’t like what I have to say to that?”

Peter’s mind stuttered. “What? NO!”

“I believe you.”

Peter stared at his closed-eyed grandfather lying on his back on the blanket, belatedly realising that he hadn’t lied. Because it seemed he was finally ready to admit he _did_ care about his grandpa’s approval.

That… That…

He had no idea how to even feel about that.

“The Ancient One doesn’t want to test you,” Jason suddenly said between outbreaths, because he seemed to be blending meditation with a lot of what else he was doing. “He’s certain you’ll fail.”

That… Well, that didn’t really surprise him. Being underestimated half the time and a disappointment the other half was practically the story of his life, bitter though the admission felt even held close to his chest. “And you?”

“I’ve been trying to improve you so he won’t be as certain.” Grandpa said, still not opening his eyes. “Have I succeeded?”

Peter looked down, feeling suddenly resentful. Resentful at himself for not being good enough. Resentful of the man for treating him like he should know the answer. Resentful for being treated like an adult. Resentful at himself for feeling resentful at getting what he asked for in the first place. “I don’t know.” What else could he say?

“Stand up.” Jason flowed to his feet without forewarning. It made Peter start in place but the man paid it no heed. He pinned him with a stare, suddenly intense. “Stand up and show me how far you’ve come with the gun forms.”

Blinking in confusion - didn’t he know where he was from their dream work? – but finally comfortable taking direction from the man, Peter Quill did as he was told. He had actually done them a few times outside their dreams when he wasn’t with his mom or grandmother so it should be easy enough. Okay, not easy but doable.

Even if it suddenly felt a lot harder to refrain from squirming or false starts when the wish not to disappoint someone was so much more real than it had ever been before.

_~Keeping all the things I knew inside~_

_~It's hard, but it's harder to ignore it~_

Peter Quill solved that by closing his eyes and beginning the routine, all the while pretending no one else was there. Fake it till you make it, even if it seemed less and less of a viable strategy with each passing day.

Gun forms were basically martial arts, but with guns. Their role was to train someone to combine use of firearms with hand-to-hand combat and traditional melee weapons in relatively equal ratios. Or, rather, to make it easy to use at any time and switch between them as desired. When mastered, they supposedly let one shoot a gun from each hand, shoot a gun from each hand while jumping at the same time, dual wield, shoot from behind the back, and even use guns as melee weapons like in knife fights. Other moves could involve scatter guns, submachine blasters, rocket launchers, and just about anything else that could be used to stab, shoot or blow up someone. They were also supposed to combine with grappling maneuvers and counters thereof once he got good enough. Or, at least, that’s how grandpa had explained it.

Peter was actually past the basics and well into the intermediate forms, thanks to how much time could be crammed in dreams while mere minutes passed in the regular world. But he started with the basic forms and went through them one after another without rushing. Grandpa hadn’t given him guns to use this time, but he’d trained him to form, hold and flow between various hand gestures and marks as a substitute as well. It was a way to simulate proper muscle tension and integrate manual dexterity into the training at the same time.

He was half-way through the main forms when he heard his grandpa walking around and beating things into the ground, but he didn’t pause or open his eyes. He was starting the intermediate forms and starting to feel that infamous workout high he’d _never_ gotten before when his grandpa called his name. He didn’t pause – he’d learned a long time ago now not to pause without being specifically told to – but he did open his eyes and looked.

It was to find three dummies set up ahead and to his sides.

“Here.” Jason Quill tossed him two quad-blasters almost identical to the ones he’d favored in his last life.

The surprise almost broke his routine, but reflex saved him where his mind stuttered and he caught and integrated them in the current form just as he reached the end. Fleetingly he noticed the Ancient One was also there all of a sudden but that was alright. Having his guns in his hands made an unprecedented feeling of _accomplishment_ bubble up from somewhere within him. And unlike any other emotions, it didn’t distract him at all. Instead, it filled every last bit of him and smoothed his motions, made him feel comfortable in his own skin like he’d never felt since remembering his life before.

“Form six,” Jason Quill commanded. “I expect bullseyes. All of them. Go!”

Blast.

Crack-Blast.

Forth-blast, back-blast, under-arm, over-the-arm, headshot, center, center, center-shot, base round-robin, bang, bang, bang and round he goes aaand… one last for the beheaded head to go.

The dummies fell and scattered all over the snowy ground, in red-hot bits and smoking pieces.

The form had been on point. All his shots had hit right where he wanted them. There was that one moment when it looked like he’d miss but the bolt struck where he wanted anyway because he’d _not_ mess this up. Not here, not now. He’d score 100% on this test no matter what.

And he had.

He rose from his crouch, grinning with the satisfaction of a job well done.

His grandpa, though, didn’t seem wholly proud of him when he looked at him. Or, well, he did. But he was also strangely grim in his satisfaction, somehow. The man strode over and held out a hand. “Gun.”

Peter blinked but handed it over without a comment.

Jason Quill then looked down at him wryly and snapped the blaster in half.

Peter gaped and stared at the gun halves, aghast. Then he looked closer and didn’t know if he should be astounded or appalled.

It was a flash-printed dud.

What in the…?

Looking between the old man and his remaining gun, Peter tried to break it in half too. He failed because the upper body strength of his eight-year old body was crap. But when he knocked on its side and got a distinctly _wrong_ sound for his trouble, he could only look at his grandfather in shock. Then Peter recalled the only other time when he’d tried to fire a flash-printed dud.

He dropped the gun replica and staggered backwards, face going stark white.

“Before you go all histrionic, let me assure you that there was almost no chance of you doing this back then, nor was I aware of the possibility,” grandpa’s words were calm and steady as they almost always got when he freaked out about something. “Ask the Sorcerer if you don’t believe me.”

Peter looked from the man to the Ancient One entirely because he was told to. His mind wasn’t much good for anything right now.

Said old man was giving Peter the strangest look he’d ever seen. It was a bizarre mix between the stare of a harassed door-to-door salesman, and the look Drax sometime gave him when he tried to explain a metaphor in the old timeline. “Vishanti protect me from overachieving fools,” the Sorcerer lamented, shaking his head. Then he gave grandpa Jason the _driest_ look Peter could imagine. “And overachieving geniuses as well, it seems.”

“Okay,” Peter said numbly. “And for us mere mortals that just got our brains broken in the extremely recent past that means what?”

“Something I noticed during your training is that you’re not as creative when learning as when applying teachings, but you imitate _very_ well,” grandpa Jason ‘explained’ in such a way that he could suddenly understand jack shit. “It turns out the subconscious side of that goes a lot farther than either of us thought. Or, well, extraconscious.”

_~How can I try to explain?~_

“… I have no idea what you just said.”

“In brief,” Yao interjected. “Our time frame until something irreversible or un-concealable occurs has been reduced _considerably_.” The man looked to his grandpa again then. “We must focus on expediency but can no longer make allowances for procrastination or _cowardice._ ”

Before Peter could even figure out who the wizard was insulting, Jason Quill nodded sharply, took him by the shoulder and marched him forward into the portal that the Ancient One opened between them and the room where his real self waited because he’d been just a projection all that time. Of course.

“Where are we going?” Peter asked.

“Off to see the wizard and then to you following through on your promise of being a man.”

It took him a few moments to figure out what grandpa meant, but then Peter felt whatever colour had returned to his face drain out of it again.

_~You will still be here tomorrow~_

_~But your dreams may not~_

He’d pushed the boundaries of their pact and had now been pushed back.

As he’d once promised to his grandfather, he had to go and finally confront his mother.


	4. The Arcane Teaching

“-. 10 January, 1989 .-“

“You have some nerve,” Meredith Quill the Younger said coldly, glaring at Grandpa like he’d just disowned her. “I fully expected this from you, _daddy_ ,” she practically spat out the word. “But dragging Peter into it? That’s one _hundred_ steps too far.”

“Because heaven forbid the boy have an opinion of his own,” Grandpa scoffed.

“His own opinion? The only one who can provide _any_ basis for an opinion on his daddy is me, and I never put such nonsense in his head!”

“Hah! What’s nonsense is you being so sure that scoundrel was an angel and a saint.”

“Scoundrel? Scoundrel!? You never even met him!”

“And who’s fault is that?” Dad said snidely. “What a brave daughter I’ve raised, she doesn’t even have the guts to introduce her parents to her man.”

“I did you a favour, he’d have walked all over you!”

“Don’t project your frailties on me, girl. Only one of us is willing to take a pretty face at their word without any second opinions and it ain’t me.”

“You just say that because he loves me for who I am, like you _never_ did!” Meredith Quill yelled. “Well joke’s on you, daddy, because I _can_ love people for who they are, unlike you!”

“Oh spare me the guilt trips,” Grandpa scoffed, entirely unimpressed with that ad-hominem. “If he was so great you’d have gotten us to meet right off. And if he was _decent_ then he shouldn’t have expected you to be his mother! It’s a mother’s job to love him for who he is. _Your_ job is to love him for what he _did_ and _does_. And what he _did_ is put a tumor in your skull!” Grandpa’s voice turned into a shout for the first time in the quarrel. “What he _does_ is setting up the end of all life!”

“Enough with the drug-fuelled insanity! Psychedelic visions are not facts! If I’d known you’d take drug-fuelled hallucinations at face value, I’d never have nagged you to take them with me!”

“So you _lied_ to me every time you talked about it ‘digging through the soul for the truth,’ is that it? You’ve just been a mind-addled junkie all this time, is that it? No wonder you’d go all-in on whatever feel-good crap that scoundrel hooked you on!”

In case it wasn’t clear, drama is real.

The Talk of Talks had _not_ gone well.

In fact, it had gone sideways pretty much immediately. It had gone sideways the moment Peter stepped up to confront his mama about Ego and… didn’t. Instead he’d gotten two sentences in and _locked up_.

Fast forward five minutes and it was grandpa that had to step it and flatly lay out reality.

Which led to an unexpected level of denial on his mama’s part relative to whether proven magic gave credibility to DMT-fuelled past life recall. And then there was this.

“You… You… You have no _right_ to cast aspersions on our relationship!”

“Aspersions. Pah! I bet I can guess precisely how your fling with him got on!”

“Fling? Fling!? How dare you! We saw each on and off other for years and he gave me a son! You can’t even begin to imagine what kind of chemistry we had!”

“Chemistry? This crap called ‘chemistry’ is responsible for more broken homes than almost anything else. Call it by its name, girl, it’s ‘lust.’ It’s lust and it _never_ lasts. If you get together with someone just because you want to have sex with them, they will either resent you for using them or _use you up_. And wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened!”

“Shut up!” To Peter’s dull surprise, his mama _didn’t_ try to slap grandpa. Even though every one of _his_ memories of a woman raising his voice to him in his last life was always accompanied by a kick or a slap. Or five. “Shut up, shut up! You don’t know anything about us. You don’t know anything about him. The kind of man he was-he was perfect in every way you’ve never been! You’d never be able to even imagine it.”

“Is that so?” Dad said mockingly. His hands flexed oddly, as if he’d just tensed and un-tensed his whole body. “I bet I can guess just from knowing your so-called _tastes_.”

“Oh please,” mama said, crossing her arms in a gesture that she probably hadn’t meant to be as defensive as it was. “As if men could ever understand what women want!”

“That’s never been a mystery, daughter mine,” Grandpa said just as scornfully. “A woman’s tastes aren’t complicated, they’re just _numerous_. So long as he knows them, a man can get _any_ woman to fall for him _._ For a mighty ‘Angel’ like yours that can be whatever he wants? It would have been even easier! Let’s see. He had a good job – or he pretended to, it’s something he’d easily have sold you, I’m sure. After all, he had to be away often but he drove that teal and orange 1979 Ford Mustang Cobra you constantly raved about, so he _must_ have been well off. It was _obvious_ he had a super-secret important job. That he was spending all his vacation days with you whenever he could get them? That’s fairy tale romance already! But that was just the start, wasn’t it? Let’s see, he was confident without being too arrogant. He was funny, but not goofy funny. He was tall, but not too tall, and definitely not ‘weird’ tall. He was spontaneous, but only when you were expecting it. Handsome was a plus, and handsome with good hair was better so he was definitely both. Not a baldy for sure! He definitely also knew the exact time to say _all_ the right things, and the right time not to say anything. As part of that he made sure to treat you like a woman not just in the bedroom but also when you were out on the town. And when you were out, he probably bought balloons and joked with random kids to show you that he’s family oriented and good with kids, but not _too_ good with kids like in a creepy clown way. And because he could afford it all and the good car whenever he was around, then he _clearly_ must have been intelligent. Or at the very least money smart so he’d know how to invest for retirement, any kid’s college fund and your funeral expenses. And because he also made sure to spend all his time with you when he wasn’t gone, then it _must_ have also meant he knew to spend time with his friends _only_ when it was convenient for _you_. And of course, because your ‘spaceman’ was so perfect in every other way, then _clearly_ he’d also have known to care about you but not be too controlling if you ever wanted to spend time with other people. After all, sometimes a woman just wants to go out and have fun with the girls or her kids or maybe even her parents without him, and he needs to be ok with that. Not, say, get all like ‘ _hey_ where are you going’ and intruding on you and blaming you for the weakness in his convictions and _infecting you with terminal brain cancer that ate you up from the inside UNTIL YOU ALMOST DIED!_ ”

The roar which ended that tirade sent Meredith Quill stumbling backwards, stunned at all the inferred truth that had just been said by an angry father. She wasn’t in tears. Not yet. But her eyes were blown wide and her face whiter than Peter’s had been when he realised how close he’d come to killing his grandpa way back when. No matter _what_ grandpa had to say about it.

For his part, the boy felt like he was floating through molasses. Or maybe sinking. Part of it was the uncharacteristically strong emotion his grandpa had just exhibited. But most of it stemmed from stunned astonishment at Jason Quill having this sort of insight into the female mind. Peter had barely considered reassessing his past love life through the lens of this tirade and it already explained _everything_.

“For the record, daughter mine,” Grandpa finally said when the silence stretched on too long. “I _do_ accept you for who you are. But love and like are different things, and only one of them is unlimited. So I do accept you. I accept that you’re lacking, hence why I try to work with you to become more and better. Belated as it is.” He looked from her to Peter then. “And not just you.”

Whatever progress might or might not have been made was seemingly wiped away from mama’s face in an instant. “It’s not _your_ place to-!“

“STOP!” Peter yelled, jumping between the two of them. “Stop! Just stop it! Enough!”

They stopped.

Everything stopped except his thoughts. Peter could have sworn a memory flashed through his mind about his mama (or grandma?) warning him against people who seemed too good to be true, because it meant they probably _were_ too good to be true. But he didn’t remember the memory happening at any point in the past life he remembered for the life of him. The same way he didn’t remember his mama (grandma?) telling him not to ever expect a wife to do his mother’s job, even though he _did_ remember it. _I'm 28 now and still feel the impulse to be loved for who I am. But I know it will never happen._ The words were his grandmother’s (mother’s?). How could it? His mom was still just 25 _._ But the face was unmistakably his mother’s (grandmother’s?). _If you were not loved as a child, accept that loss. Asking others to fix that now only continues the lovelessness to the grave. It is a hell of a tough pill to swallow, but the alternative is much worse._ And yet he didn’t remember any of it _happening_. And how was it appropriate to this situation? His mama had been the farthest thing from unloved as a child!

There was an emptiness in his mind. A gap shaped like a blaster scar where memory should be.

“Baby-“

“Grandpa,” Peter said, interrupting (!) his mother before she could further confuse him and facing the man first. “You… I don’t know what to say to you. But I’m sure there’s something big and meaningful I could say to all this, so just imagine that’s what I did instead of this total nothing just now.”

Jason Quill looked at Peter Quill like a man who’d expected better from him than the greatest failure in character assessment of all time. His grandfather… he was actually pretty intimidating, wasn’t he? Even when he wasn’t completely overpowering you with sheer force of personality.

Peter turned from the grimly disappointed man before he could be overpowered _without_ his grandpa bothering to call on that force of personality. He faced instead his cowed mother, wondering if she suffered from the same inferiority complex that he did. “And mom, sorry to say but Grandpa’s right. Ego was – _is_ – the one who made you sick because he’s a scruffy-looking, sick, megalomaniacal, shit-faced bastard-“

A hand lashed out. A gust of wind washed over his face. His mother’s palm was half an inch from his cheek, quivering. Her wrist was held fast in the gentle but immovable grip of his grandfather whose movement Peter had barely even seen. Unlike her own.

Eyes dull with dismal comprehension looked between his mother’s frozen face and the hand she’d almost slapped him with. This… this was like a copy of so many memories of his other life and yet somehow it felt strangely unexpected and unfamiliar.

Then grandpa slowly pushed him away and interposed himself between his mother and him. And he lowly and with startling gentleness began to sing. _“~He came on a summer's day ~ Bringing gifts from far away ~ But he made it clear he couldn't stay ~ No harbor was his home.”_ Looking Glass. Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl). _“~Brandy used to watch his eyes ~ When he told his sailor's story ~ She could feel the ocean fall and rise ~ She saw its raging glory ~”_ The verses from the love song in Awesome Mix Volume 2 flowed from Jason Quill with the same mastery he possessed in everything else. _“_ ~ _At night when the bars close down ~ Brandy walks through a silent town ~ And loves a man who's not around_. _~”_ Then the words and tune abruptly changed to My Sweet Lord by George Harrison. _“_ ~ _My sweet Lord ~ Mmm, my Lord ~ Mmm, my Lord ~ I really wanna see you ~ Really wanna be with you ~ Really wanna see you, Lord ~ But **it takes** **so long** , my Lord_. _”_ Jason Quill barely gave them the chance to wonder at the emphasis on that one verse before he switched one last time. _“~_ _Listen to the wind blow ~ Watch the sun rise ~ Run in the shadows ~ Damn your love ~ Damn your **lies**.~” _Fleetwood Mac. The Chain. _“_ ~ _I can still hear you saying ~ You would never break the chain.”_

_“~Listen to the wind blow ~ Down comes the night ~ Run in the shadows ~ Damn your love ~ Damn your lies,”_ sang Meredith Quill the Younger, faintly and weakly and unable to look at Peter or his grandfather or anyone else anymore.

_“~Break the silence~”_ Grandpa sung at the end, still at that low murmur and that terrible gentleness that never wavered or waned as he moved towards and then with his timorous daughter away from everyone else’s presence. _“~Damn the dark ~ Damn the light.~”_

The song drifted out of sight and hearing just as his mother and grandfather left Peter’s sight and hearing by the time it was over. Grandmother, who’d been sitting quietly on a divan throughout the entire ordeal, now got to her feet and went to close the door behind them.

Then she came back, guided Peter to the divan and sat him down next to her. “Well,” she said blithely. “I suppose that’s one way to make sure _all_ of us know why that alien menace fell for your mother.”

Peter blinked dumbly at the old woman. Because none of that could possibly be why Ego fell for her and wait a minute, what?

“Actually, I think it is,” Grandma didn’t agree with what he’d apparently said out loud. What a shock. “Opposites attract but what happens afterwards is rarely useful or good for either side unless we’re talking about magnets, and even then only if they’re equally tough. Generally speaking, an evil man would only court a saintly woman intending to destroy her purity. But that’s not what happened, is it? Now it’s not _impossible_ he was drawn in by her outgoing nature and admittedly charming ability to accept others. But a man only stays for those traits of a woman that he _does_ like. Unless this _was_ a case of Belle the Beauty taming the Beast, but what are the odds of that?”

Pretty good if you listened to Ego, but Peter was constantly finding reasons to disbelieve everything his enemies told him in the undone past. He tried to guess what traits his grandma was talking about instead. Or at least one of them. “Devotion?”

“To him, yes. She’s clearly not short on it. Also, manipulativeness. Don’t forget she also cares very little for most life forms other than the ones so pathetic that they can’t go on without her direct nurture and protection.”

“Well gee,” Peter said flatly. “Thanks grandma.”

“I wasn’t talking about you, dear,” the woman said with a raised eyebrow. “She’s a wee bit too much of a self-righteous activist on behalf of causes she’d never have even considered worth her notice if she weren’t as financially and socially privileged as we worked to make her.” Wow, wasn’t that a bit harsh? She’s her daughter! “Sure, it’s our fault for being too indulgent with her, but after what she just did I think it’s past time we all faced reality, don’t you?”

Peter stared at the woman.

“Your grandfather was incredibly restrained by the way,” Grandma continued when she saw he was too lost for words, picking up her embroidery hoop. “The tally he doled out actually goes on to 167 items. He stopped _very_ short of the full checklist.”

Peter didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything.

Which was, apparently, the wrong thing to do. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you seeing her hit coming from a mile away and not doing anything. How many times did it happened in that past life of yours?”

At least once with every woman he was ever with. “Occasionally.”

“Liar,” because of course she could see through him as easily as Grandpa could. “And how many times did you avoid or dodge such blows in the early days, only for the floozy to become a relentless, spiteful bitch that would stop at nothing but the complete destruction of your life for the high insult of being man enough not to take such abuse?”

Peter Jason Quill blinked at the woman, a tad bit on the side of pole-axed from orbit. So much so that he didn’t have it in him to give an answer. It was obvious anyway: the answer was all of them. It was just easier all around to take the hit and let them flounce off with their fake victory.

Meredith the Older shook her head as she teased at a stitch. She was sewing a model of an M-Ship, Peter noted distantly. “You have no respect or love for yourself worth mentioning, Peter.” That… that wasn’t true, was it? “I’m glad those pirates are dead if it means they won’t get to break you like this again.”

Peter suddenly had to swallow hard against his dry throat. “I… I think I’ll go for a walk.”

“Love you, Peter.”

The casual, almost absent-minded words followed him out of room, hallway and building until he was on the top-most terrace of the Astral Overlook. The day was overcast and windy but at least that was okay. The cold never bothered him anyway.

It was there that the Ancient One joined him some time later, when he’d long since burned through all the energy he could allocate to pretend everything back inside hadn’t happened. The Sorcerer sure knew his timing, Peter thought bitterly. “So,” he said when the old man didn’t seem like he would start the conversation. “Now that I failed as I’m sure everyone expected, what’s next?” It was hard to withhold his resentment, even though he didn’t know towards whom he was resentful at this point. _We can no longer make allowances for procrastination or cowardice_. Oh, that’s right, with himself. How very-

“Indulge me in an exercise,” the man said, completely derailing whatever Peter expected the discussion to be. “First, let’s make this a quiet place, free from the disturbances and distracting influences of the outside world.” The man performed a subtle hand gesture. The wind roar faded along with the snow glare and every other distracting draft, sight and sound. “Assume a position of rest, relaxing the tension from your muscles and nerves.”

Peter blinked, taken aback, but after an inexorable gaze from the man, he sat down next to the railing. Then he laid on his back on the balcony floor when that was clearly not enough.

“Now fix your attention upon your physical body. First the body as a whole, and then beginning at the feet, move the attention upward until your whole body has been included in attention, step by step, until the brain is reached.”

Peter wondered momentarily what kind of mystical exercise this was supposed to be, but he did as he was told.

As he did, though, he started to understand the point of it before he even finished the imagination. He became aware, by degrees, that he was a Something inside of the body. Even viewing and considering the body in all of its details, he suddenly didn’t feel at all identical with it.

“By this point you will have found a dawning realization that the body is but the physical envelope or sheath in which the Ego dwells. Or a garment which the Ego has assumed for the conveniences of physical life.”

He… he was right. The realization hadn’t come all at once, but gradually dawned upon and in his consciousness.

Huh. Neat.

“Now concentrate your attention upon your feet, until you are able to regard them as but tools or instruments whereby the Ego may walk in physical form. Then, using your imagination, realize that even if your feet were not there, attached to the body, the Ego would still be fully existent and in being - that, although deprived of useful tools, the Ego would still be the Ego, unimpaired and undisturbed in its real being.”

Yao talked him through the mental exercise, making him imagine himself without his legs, his arms, his pelvic organs, his chest organs and even the head. Peter didn’t know how much time it took but he found it didn’t matter. What mattered was… whoa…

“By now you will have realized that while the uses and purposes of these organs are important to physical life, the integrity and being of the Ego is in no way dependent upon them,” Yao spoke confidently as if he could decide the reality of the words for himself. Peter… didn’t have it in him to deny him. “Now, in imagination, separate yourself from all these limbs and organs in consciousness, and realize that even if that part of the body were removed, and missing, nevertheless the Ego would be fully existent in its entirety of being.

To his distant surprise, Peter didn’t need to have it justified or explained to him. He just did as directed.

“Now throw your mind into and over the entire body and into and through all of its parts.”

He could practically feel the process beginning to re-energize his physical body the moment he ‘imagined’ himself settling back throughout it. Had it become devitalised just through the analytical process? Peter didn’t even have to imagine it re-charging with vitality and becoming stronger and more energetic than it was before the exercise. The moment he fully started to think of it as just an instrument, or machine, used by and directed by the Ego – that it was _Mastered_ by the Ego – he felt like he suddenly was in possession of a new power. A power that was just one step removed from leaving the body entirely.

So in a moment of whimsy, Peter imagined himself doing just that.

And then it wasn’t just imagination. He actually did leave his body on the ground and rose to gaze down upon it from above, as if he’d just emerged out of it through a circle of light that broke before him and shattered outwards until he was unbound.

Peter suddenly remembered the fullness of his flight through stars and time and became abruptly cognizant that the machinery of his physical body was just a created machine through which his Ego manifested. Was this why his father chose the name he did for himself? Peter could maybe begin to see it. If the Ego is above, independent of and apart from the physical body, then it may dwell apart from and out of the body. Or it may dwell in, of and through it and turn it into whatever he wanted it to be.

Peter was suddenly seized by the urge to imagine himself as occupying other and different bodies, one at a time, in different phases of life and condition, in different ages. Because his Ego was something so much bigger and higher and independent of this flimsy body of his that all he had to do was _Will_ -

“Always you OVERSTEP!”

A crack in thought let forth the glimpse of a great, looming star field shaped like not-a-man and Peter Quill snapped awake on the ground, blind and graceless and gasping and heaving from a mighty fall and fright.

“Always you overstretch. Always you overestimate. Always you _assume_. Barely minutes under my instruction and you already seek to blow right past it. Hubris does not begin to describe it. Childish delusion of adequacy barely comes close. More fitting to call it self-indulgent _stupidity_.”

“Excuse you!?” Peter gripped blindly around himself. His sight flickered from clear to nothing every other blink, like scratchy noise that broke out through scratched film. He felt for the railing, and when he found it he exploded upwards, jumping to his feet and ignoring how he swayed to point fingers in the direction of the voice. “Fuck you old man! You’re the one who said we didn’t have any more time for procrastination or cowardice. Those were your words, not mine!”

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. But Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. And for all that you _indulged_ your grandfather in his earnest attempts to salvage the disaster of a manchild you’ve become, you never even considered what other claims and rights he might have had abstract yourself. Like you _assumed_ it fell to the most inadequate and psychologically damaged boy within a hundred miles to confront a grown woman and mother about her deficiencies. Rather than the father on whose shoulders fell the responsibility to redress past mistakes in her upbringing. Never mind that the consequences of personal choices should be no one’s responsibility but their own. You assumed it was your place to confront her false beliefs. You assumed it was your right to make that decision. You even had the gall to use it as a stepping stone in your quest to prove yourself worthy of some standard of bravery on which you consulted _none_ of the other individuals involved that are _wiser than yourself_. Which is _all of them!_ ”

Peter drew back at the second uncharacteristic display of emotion he’d seen that day, his sight settling enough into the real world again to see what he was dealing with. He tried to go back over all the words. Then he thought back further over weeks and months, trying to conjure up evidence and memory that could disprove them.

He couldn’t.

Yao looked down upon him, gaze narrow and harsh. “The average person is surprised, incredulous and even indignant when I inform them that very few among sapient beings really have awareness or consciousness of the I AM within them. They take themselves for granted, and never turn the gaze inward. Self-consciousness, like personality – simple consciousness – has many degrees on its scale. One has but to study his fellow men in order to perceive these varying degrees. That is why most do not seek the Path, and most who do dare not step upon it. They believe themselves fully realised, when in fact they are not. They all insist that they are fully aware of the existence of the ‘I,’ and cannot imagine that anyone can have the audacity to dispute the proposition. Even though the Truth is painfully simple: there is _no_ immortal soul inherent to _any_ mortal kind!”

The words barrelled over him and through him and past him and almost didn’t make any sense at all.

“This is _not_ your issue. The issue for you is not failure to achieve, but _overachievement_. The Ego-Consciousness – the immortal spirit one can obtain only if they _strive_ – should become the habitual and natural consciousness at all times and under all conditions. But this is an achievement and realisation that is sought and developed _by degree_. That is the _opposite_ of your development. Almost all the times undone ended _before_ your own life ended. But you did _not_ develop Ego during any of them. The Ego – the immortal soul that religion has wrongly taught all mortals to take for granted – is something you only gained during your last life, the only life you now remember. This would be no issue on itself – indeed, it is the common state of things for many of the beings that lived when time was undone so many times previously. Normally this would also mean that you would never be more than an adjacent or incidental factor to any Event of Importance. If only due to the limited ability of _personalities_ to conceive themselves in such a role, however petty and grand their imagination. And yet, somehow, you slew a Cosmic God. Which was years _after_ you maneuvered yourself into the position of holding an embodied fragment of the Infinite All.”

The words flowed from the man and beyond him and above him and still didn’t make any sense at all. “What are you even trying to _say_ , old man?”

“You were never seriously hurt even when shot point-blank. You were never more than equally matched in any physical or armed confrontation no matter who or what in the Universe you fought for more than five seconds. The Spider Totem – the one you briefly knew as Spider-Man – can sense danger from all sides, is fast enough to move between blinks of the eye, and is strong enough to upturn locomotives. And yet you, an ostensibly normal human with no enhancements to speak of, were somehow able to outmaneuver, overpower and _hold him hostage_ within the space of seconds during your first meeting on an unknown craft.” Yao loomed tall and foreboding over him. “Did you never wonder how you achieved any of that?”

Peter gaped and stared up at the man, staggered.

“There is nothing beyond your body and personality that has ever been more than _unconscious,_ Peter Jason Quill. And yet you held the Stone of Power and later witnessed in full the Substance of All Things, if only for a moment in Eternity. Achieving Ego-Hood in such situation is the _only_ alternative to nothingness. But there was never anything outside your body and personality that was ever more than unconscious. And so your Ego itself lingers and IS unconscious now.”

Peter stared up at the man. That… he wanted to say that made no sense at all but the conviction died the moment he thought it. “What does any of this _mean_?” He asked, voice one level too high. He cleared his throat. “No offense but it feels like you’re dumping me head-first into the advanced material.”

“There is no palatable alternative. You roll and rumble and roil unconsciously without being aware of it even while everything else _is._ Or would be, if not for my concealment. But we are approaching the point where I will no longer be able to keep you hidden. You are a sleeping giant who thinks he is awake when in fact he is rolling over in dream and delusion. You are the blind leading the blind. The _almighty idiot_.”

Peter leaned on the railing, feeling like he was actually bumbling vaguely downwards. He didn’t say anything. Or think anything. He was lost for words.

“There is no more time to waste. There is no time to gradually awaken you to the Realization of Egohood. You already achieved Attainment without even discovering the Secret. The Key of Power. But you don’t _see_ it. And we have no time to wake you gently to what you already are. But the truth remains the same: you cannot exercise the Power of Spirit unless you realize that you are Spirit. Spirit is the Succor of the Cosmos. The Ego is a focal point or centre in that Essence. Come. We must prepare.”

“What?” Peter asked, feeling slow and numb. But the Sorcerer was already walking away. Peter rushed after him. “Wait! Where are we going? What are you going to do?”

“ _We_ are going to start preparations to get you ready for the Hall of Attainment. And then _I_ am going to keep watch to see if the Universe’s track record remains untarnished relative to the rather more unpleasant alternative to the gradual awakening of awareness to Egohood.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“ _You_ will go on a Soul Wine journey without my protection or guidance. And _I_ will see if withholding that help will be enough to _scare you awake_.”

“-. 11 January, 1989 .-“

It turned out that for every DMT trip his mom or he himself had ever been on, the Ancient One had been there to smooth out and make it easy on them both. Or useful in his case.

That was _not_ going to be the case this time.

_“It is not enough to be told or agree with a teacher. You must experience the fact that you are an Ego-Centre in the Cosmic Life. You must realize that you are more than body and mind. That you are Spirit in SPIRIT. No mere intellectual acquiescence or understanding will supply the real experience of Egohood.”_

The words were ones he knew and the sentences made sense but he didn’t understand the meaning beyond what he could imagine. Which was jack shit apparently.

_“You must experience the realization that you are an Ego – a spiritual entity – before you attain Egohood. One cannot be dragged or pulled up into this stage, not even you. One must grow into it naturally, as a seedling grows into a tree that then blooms into leaf and flower. Unlike other plants, you have been grafted. Now we shall see if you can make that graft your own. Or perhaps you will shed it. Or both. Or none. We shall see.”_

Peter didn’t have any contact with his mother or grandfather for five days after the argument. Not because he was forbidden to, but because his grandfather wouldn’t leave his mama before they were through with things. And his mama didn’t feel strongly enough about the reverse to flee her own rooms over it.

Or maybe they were making real progress. Either way, to Peter it felt rather like he was a bystander in the play being enacted of his life.

_“Your personality is merely the part in life you are playing – ‘the Peter Quill part of you.’ And, consequently, the awareness of Personality is merely an awareness or consciousness of your own personal character, just as an actor is aware and conscious of the character of the play he is enacting._ _”_

When not being taught or put through various mental exercises by the Ancient One, Peter spent those days trying to imagine what it would be like if an actor forgot his real Self. If he became so earnest and wrapped in the play that he believed he really was Hamlet or Richard III or Faustus or Mephistopheles. He thought it gave him a pretty clear idea of the state of consciousness of the regular Joe. Peter wondered what it was supposed to be like, to shake off that illusion. Would he find out he was something more than the assumed character – would he awaken to find out that he was more than ‘Peter Quill’ – and feel like his personality is just an assumed character? Was he a mask used by an actor?

_“The Consciousness of Individuality is an awareness by man that he is above the limits and character of Personality – that he is a Centre of Consciousness and Force in the One Cosmic Life._ _Once firmly fixed, the Ego-Consciousness never leaves one. Once found, it becomes a Tower of Strength in which one may ever take refuge from the trials of the personal life – and from which one may safely defy the things of personality.”_

The words were utterly loaded with meaning but he could barely grasp most of it. Even though nobody had the same problem. Not even his grandma. Which was an uncharitable thought, it’s not like grandpa would ever fall for a simple woman. But it was a terrible thing to see himself lag so far behind in understanding just because he wasn’t well-adjusted. It was so frustrating!

“Peter, you’re eight. I know reincarnation is a big thing, but so is neuroplasticity.” Grandma told him when serving him tea the third evening. “Also, all that stuff you’re learning sounds like a formula to me.”

Fasting meant he wouldn’t be eating much. Or at all if it could be helped. That, at least, wasn’t great hardship for him. He’d gone hungry _a lot_ in his former life.

“The first step seems to be acquiring the realization that the Ego is not the physical organism, but _is_ its master,” Grandma further opined. Peter thought he had that already, but he was sure Yao would disagree. And probably use words like ‘clear,’ ‘distinct,’ ‘positive’ and ‘absolute’ while doing it. “From what I’ve asked and heard from Jason and our host, it sounds like every student of the mystic arts, even those who’ve achieved whatever mental consciousness state the menfolk are talking about, need some nice and proper drilling in order to escape the physical body entirely.”

Why had grandma never gone on a DMT trip again? She sounded like she’d ace it. Not that it was a competition. “You’d think it would be easier at this point,” Peter instead muttered. Sullenly. Trying to ignore his growling stomach with little success. “It’s not like we don’t all know this stuff. We’ve all seen this movie.”

“Yes, where would we all be without the wisdom of people who become rich pretending to be something they’re not while uttering words written for them by someone else?” Grandma said dryly. “Thank you Hollywood. You enrich us.”

“Hey, Kung Fu was a great series!”

“No, the stunts of masculine dominance were distracting enough for the aphorisms cited out of context from the Tao Te Ching to seem ‘great,’” Yao threw in from where he was sipping at his own tea. Peter could practically hear the quotation marks.

“Hold on, you watched Kung Fu?”

“In your dreams.”

The world tilted sideways. What? This was _not_ what the Sorcerer’s sense of humour was like-oh! “Oh! You mean that literally!” Peter realized.

“Though the Ego is beyond such things as harm and hurt, certain things remain inescapable,” the Ancient One said drolly. “Such as the witnessing of the less than relevant things of others while in search of their complete picture.”

He could have just said ‘dream walking’ and left it at that. Jeez.

It was on the fifth day that Peter finally got to see someone besides his grandma or Ancient One again. And it wasn’t his grandfather, despite what he’d expected. It was his mother.

Meredith Quill sat down next to her son on the divan backing the north-side wall of their floor’s communal living quarters and took his hand in one of hers. There was nobody else there. Yao was doing whatever he was doing wherever. Grandpa was wherever else. And Grandma had left to check on her man as she always did around noon and the evenings.

His mother looked… thoughtful. Melancholic. And settled in a way Peter hadn’t seen her even at her best before the tumor. And he _could_ remember that far. Easily. More and more easily with every new ‘exercise’ that the Ancient One made him try. And try and try and try whenever he had too much on his mind. Shame. Memories. Friends he no longer had. Hunger pangs.

“I was turning into a bad mother, wasn’t I?”

There were several things that passed through Peter’s mind. He said none of them.

“Peter?”

No way in hell. No way. No. I don’t think so. “… I don’t know mom,” he finally admitted. “I don’t… I just wouldn’t know,” he said miserably.

“I guess you wouldn’t, given what I’ve been doing. Because how dare anyone suggest to me there might be some things in need of improving about myself? It’s not like I’ve chugged up more DMT than both of you combined,” she said with unprecedented self-deprecation. But she firmed against it as if she’d been prepared for the answer, even if it hurt her. “But I can damn well make sure you’ll know what a good mother is like this time around.”

Peter let his gaze drop from hers to the doily on the table, mind whirling with mixed feelings and questions. And one chief among them: What had his grandpa done? Because whatever it was, it must have been _amazing_.

“Your grandfather and I… we spoke.” The undercurrent of ‘understatement’ had never been more blatant. “It wasn’t easy to hear some of the things he told me. About you. About me. About parenthood.” Se squeezed his hand faintly. “But I think I needed to hear it. Maybe a long time ago even. I suppose at first there was no precious child of mine at risk from my mounting mistakes. And later on… daddy just didn’t have no heart to make me sad while I was dying. And how could he? I was his little girl.” Meredith Quill looked wistful. “Maybe that’s where it started going sideways. I never stopped being daddy’s little girl. I never took on any of the do’s and don’ts of womanhood. Never moved past the ambitions of my youth. Never flew the coop, as they say. Oh, to have lived without the safety net of my parent’s house and bread. What harsh realities would have been thrown in my face? Guess we’ll never know now.”

Peter wished he knew what to say. _It’s not your fault_ was on the tip of his tongue, but that wasn’t exactly true was it? If not hers, whose? Grandpa’s? Grandma’s? No one’s? If there was a major thing that had been hammered into his thick head, it was that people bore full responsibility for the choices they made. Who was he to challenge his mother’s position here? Her new-found feelings of responsibility?

And who was he to absolve her of them?

“ _Never offer absolution,”_ Yao had told him. Long after Grandpa had told him the same. _“There is none alive or dead that has the right to dispense such a thing upon another soul_. _”_

Peter had a feeling that fiery religious debates would be in his immediate future if he ever said that aloud in public. That or a stoning. Or both.

“I’m still not sure I can believe everything your grandpa told me about your daddy,” his mama said, drawing him out of his mental tangent. “But I’m ready to find out for myself. Or at least become the sort of woman that can tell when the truth is or isn’t right in front of her.” She brought the back of Peter hand to her lips, then lowered it back on the divan. “So I spoke with the Wizard. I’ll be going on the DMT trip with you.” What? “No take-backs.” What!? “No safeties. No help. Just me.”

“WHAT!?” Peter jumped from his seat, which embarrassingly put him lower than he was previously. But he couldn’t be arsed to care because what!?

The futile argument that ensued went precisely nowhere. Not even when Yao showed up later in the day with his latest cup of onion and banana juice. Ugh. He’d lost count how many of those he’d had. At least he wasn’t puking his guts out because of them now.

“If it is any consolation,” the Ancient One said in that kindly voice he always used when he wasn’t tearing down your whole system of beliefs along with the rest of you. “There is no ‘joining’ someone on a Soul Wine trip. Not without one or more of those involved – or assisting – having sufficient prowess in mentalism. Which I will not be contributing.”

Yao never told him what he should expect from the trip, and neither could anyone else. Or, as he’d come to correct himself on the evening of the sixth day, no one could hint at what he should expect except one.

He really should stop being surprised over it being his Grandpa. For a moment Peter expected to feel resentful of him. But instead he felt a flash of confusion on Grandpa’s behalf for being the only one in his family who _didn’t_ get an easy pass when it came to DMT.

“Do you resent me?” Grandpa asked him wryly, after Peter tried to get over the absurd relief at finally seeing him again via the most awkward failure at starting a conversation. “That I didn’t need the same crutch you all did?”

“It feels like I should,” Peter said weakly, not shying away from being tucked into the man’s side. “But I bet I’d just look stupid.” Again. “Did it suck?”

“The first trip or three were a dreadful experience,” Grandpa admitted grimly. “Like falling into a dark and terrible place where I was tortured for an eternity every instant. At first I didn’t even have any self-awareness. Even though I was some manner of aware for all of it. And then, when I finally began to remember myself and what it was to have free will… it didn’t make any difference. When I remembered what it was like to be anything, I didn’t seem to have any ability to do anything. The suffering just… went on and on and on. It was torment the likes of which I can barely describe. A strange, soul-deep agony. And everywhere a heavy, all-pervading derision that seemed to eat at whatever I was, like acid. It felt like being eaten alive.”

Well… shit.

“The mocking laughter on and off might have been a torture-induced hallucination, or it might not have been. The only useful thing I got out of the whole thing was a whisper right at the end. ‘Meredith.’ My daughter that is. Like whatever-it-had-been was mocking me for my greatest failure. And looking forward to my return when it could devour me all over again.”

That… that…

Peter was fucked, that’s what he was. What could he say?

“It was actually kind of freeing,” Jason Quill said, a strange peace upon him. Peter gaped and stared at his bizarre conclusion, spellbound. “All that torture. That disdain. The sheer Derision. And it wasn’t for anything I couldn’t change. Not even for anything I _could_ have changed that was bigger than me and my life on this here planet. My greatest failure, and it wasn’t my people. My world. My father. My empire. Whatever destiny I thought I had. No. Somehow, my greatest failure was one of two good things I got out of the worst turn in my life. Things I could actually do something about.” Grandpa smiled slightly down at him. “Seeing as the worst your mama did was take a few extra years to get over her childish fantasies, I’d say my greatest failure wasn’t that bad a failure at all, don’t you think?”

Peter stared at the man, awestruck. What kind of person did you have to be, to be able to pull that sort of realisation from such an ordeal? If Peter had to achieve anything even remotely like it, he might as well call it quits right there. He was nowhere near that… whatever it was. He was…

“… I don’t know what’ll happen,” Peter said dully.

“Neither do I,” Jason Quill shrugged. “I doubt the Sorcerer entirely knows either.”

“So what then?” Peter scoffed. “Have faith?”

“Faith? Who the hell told you to rely on something as flimsy as that?”

Er… Yondu? Kinda? “… You’re not checking any of the pep-talk boxes, you do realise that right?”

“’Do as I say not as I do’ is not something I ascribe to, son.”

“I’m feeling distinctly not encouraged,” Peter said flatly, trying to disguise the dread he felt mounting the longer this conversation continued. “Isn’t this the part where you go all ‘I believe in you’ to get my spirits up?”

“I don’t believe in anything.”

Even sitting down, that reply staggered Peter. He’d have expected literally everything else. Anything else. Even if it was just a platitude, he could have handled it. ‘I believe in you.’ ‘You should believe in yourself.’ ‘Believe in me who believes in you.’ ‘Even if you don’t believe in yourself or whatever.’ He’d even have lived with ‘why should I believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself?’ Instead, he’d gotten… he’d…

He…

Jason Quill laughed and pulled him into his lap, turning him around to look him in the eye. His hands were firm and warm on his shoulder and his face. “Always you assume there is nothing outside your imagination that could be appropriate to your situation, son. Always you assume. Always you _overstep_.” Hearing those words from a different mouth unbalanced Peter even harder. “Does it not occur to you that perhaps there are things beyond your imagination that aren’t beyond mine? You think I haven’t already imagined and prepared for whatever could pass as your failure? You think I haven’t done the same for your success? You think I need something as flimsy as blind _faith_ to expect you to be victorious?”

Peter felt… he didn’t even know at this point.

Jason Quill chuckled again and took him by the crook of his neck, so that he couldn’t look away. “Peter. Repeat after me. I AM.”

The boy blinked, but okay. “I am…” He was what?

“No. I AM.”

“I am…?” He was _what_?

Jason Quill shook his head. “Wrong.”

“Gee, Grandpa, thanks, that explains everything!”

“I know.” The man put him down on the floor and rose to stretch.

“Oh, come on! At least tell me what I did wrong!”

“Intonation.”

“What?

“You asked what you did wrong. The answer is intonation.”

“What intonation?”

“All of it.”

“Argh!” Peter stomped his foot in a fit of childish pique. Then he flushed in embarrassment at doing so. “God, I hate you sometimes, you know that?”

“I do,” Jason Quill said with a rueful sort of solemnity. “And so does your mama on and off, even when she doesn’t admit it. Such is my burden and I bear it gladly.”

Peter practically fled from that conversation, even if he tried not to make it too obvious that’s what he was doing. It was already bad enough that his mother and grandmother had been there for all of it and hadn’t said anything. Not even his mother. Something… something seemed to have passed and concluded between them.

Peter only later realised he had forgotten to ask his Grandpa how he’d overcome whatever it was that made DMT trips such hell for him in the beginning.


	5. The Art of the Small

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had planned to include it in the previous one, but it grew too large and involves certain parties besides. Enjoy! I am posting it now as a Double Easter Special.

“-. 11 January, 1989 .-“

It was the dawn of the seventh day when he was shown into a large meditation room or other on the third floor that he couldn’t be bothered to closely examine or commit to memory. He was already stuffed full of mind-bending exercises and soul-shaking talks. After seven days of all that, and drinking nothing but tea and water, and eating nothing but onion and banana juice and the MAOI brew he’d taken and spilled his guts over during the past 45 minutes, Peter Jason Quill was more than ready to get it all over with.

Probably not the best attitude for whatever he was about to experience, but it was all the attitude he had available.

He and his mother were shown to two thin mattresses next to each other on the floor in the middle of that room. Peter would have expected a thick smell of incense to pervade the place, but there was no such thing. There also wasn’t some great diagram which they had to lay on or sit or anything. The room was instead fairly spacious but largely bare and very clean. Airy. As if recently freshened. Once he sat down, people finally started meeting his expectations by giving him last-minute words of wisdom.

Or maybe not him because grandma went to his mama first. “The proportion of single-parent households in a community predicts its rate of violent crime and burglary, but the community’s poverty level does not,” That… what did _that_ have to do with anything? “I have the statistics if you want to see them after. Do keep this in mind during whatever it is.”

Again, what?

But Meredith the Younger, though not amused, wasn’t dismissive either.

And that’s about as much as Peter saw of that because grandpa knelt next to him soon after. “You, boy, are in _desperate_ need of fathering.” That… that was ridiculously true and obvious and not something he needed to be told, Peter thought sullenly. “You’ve also taken to using self-deprecating humor to push aside your righteous anger to an unhealthy degree.” What was this, pick at Peter’s wounds day? “So if you see any easy way out of this second chance at life during whatever’s going to happen, please keep this in mind.”

The earnestness in that plea had no business at all being delivered with such sarcastic tones!

“Nobody likes to deal with overachieving fools,” Yao said idly as he knelt in front of him with the Soul Wine cup in hand. “But such is my burden, though I _don’t_ bear it gladly.”

Peter looked from the Ancient one to his grandfather, dully.

Jason Quill shrugged fatalistically. “I’ll teach you how not to be a fool for the rest of your life if you’ll let me, son, but time is the only thing we _don’t_ have now.”

Well gee, thanks! “Is everyone more informed of whatever problem I am than I am?”

“Yes,” the Ancient One said calmly, holding out the cup.

Peter turned his nose and tried not to show any of the dread he was swimming in. His mama had already drunk hers, so he was finally as out of time as everyone else said he was.

He took the cup and drank it down.

And some 45-some minutes later, he got all the proof he never wanted that there was no joining his mother or his mother joining him on this here expedition. There was a single moment where he was even aware of her. Or of the Ancient One pervading him and his surroundings in every direction for millions of miles, like a field of stars on the black canvas of the universe.

Then the veil pulled abruptly away and he could see everything and nothing from inside. Except not really because… because he’d been grafted with Power without any of the mind. Power that roiled and spread and scattered everywhere. Substance without Consciousness caught in every Motion but his. It was sparkling, titillating _bait_ for any and all manner of things and no-things and tendrils reaching out of the aborted mire of existence to sluice and stare and prod and bite on him with eyes and coils and mouths and fangs dripping poison everywhere _holy shit_ _he was being eaten!_

Terror almost blanked his mind instantly but he got no such reprieve or any other. Horror only failed to eclipse it because they both filled him to an extent that defied conception. It was like being force-fed all the ghastliness men are protected by the opacity of the region of Prescription and Custom. Like an animal being led to slaughter he’d done as told by others, he’d relinquished that protection and was now alone, falling deep into the unexplored regions of Nature haunted by… by…

It was too much too fast too unfathomable as he fell only to be caught in some acrid snare he couldn’t see. Rippling, fleshy maws that formed and chewed on whatever part of him was Some-Thing and rose to take him and everything else of him he could suddenly see and not unsee. Just like the horror devouring him and its many guises he couldn’t see or unsee. It was the Cerberus guarding the entrance to Hades. The Dragon which Þ̸͙̺͉̇͝ͅớ̶̭̖͚͇̬̍̀̃̍̾̇̊͊̈͌̈́̚r̶̛̯̜͍̺̳̭̰̦̭̪̼͉̋̇̂̈́̊̚ͅr̷̙̪̈͗̀́͐͜ was fated to kill; the Snake which tempted Ē̸̬̫̮͇̹̗̥̯̭͇̙̪̯͚̃̒̅̍̄͑̀́͘͜͝v̷͎̣̱̇͗̎ą̴̨̛̣͈͉̘̩͖̠̖̼̩̤͈͔͓͚̇͒͑̇͋̃̃̆͑́͆͌̕, and whose head will be crushed by the heel of the w̷̧̯̖͇͓̲̝͓̗̼͉̘͑̒̃̎ͅo̴̧̩̤̱̤̪̩͈̟̩̥̭͑̅̽̅̆̂͊̇̓̅̕͠m̶̧̾̓͆̽̂͗̿̀á̴̖̣̥̞̬͚̓̾̑̓̊͗̿̚ṉ̴̡͍͖̪̺̤̤̑̓́͒̅͒͛͒̚͝. The Hobgoblin watching the place where the treasure is buried. The appetite that sates himself through the eyes of every rapist and murderer. The malice gazing from the eyes of every evil king who will not permit that within his kingdom a child should grow up which might surpass him in power.

Derision. Malice. Obsession.

Peter flinched from all of it, terrible and abhorrent and dreadful and unfathomably enormous in its grotesque tremendousness. He flinched and looked away and wished to flee. But there was nowhere to flee and look and flinch away and he couldn’t… he didn’t know how to…

_Indulge me in an exercise._

The memory ignited in his depths like a flash of light. He latched onto it.

_Always you overstretch. Always you overestimate. Always you assume._

He latched onto it with all the clarity of someone who’d been dumped in a freezing pool of obsession and ill will and derision.

_By now you will have realized that while the uses and purposes of these are important, the integrity and being of the Ego is in no way dependent upon them._

Peter Quill acknowledged the great mass of Substance grafted onto him by an unworthy father. He thought of it. He saw it. He felt it. He knew it. He knew every last acid drip and fang and tentacle and eldritch mouth chewing on it. He saw it all. He felt it all. He knew it all. Like he knew there was nowhere to go but inwards _._

_Now, in imagination, separate yourself._

Peter pulled himself away from all of it and inwards. Inwards. Inwards, inwards, inwards and smaller and smaller and smaller and away from everything that fed the Horror.

The graft snapped.

Then there was nothing left but him. Peter Jason Quill. Peter Quill. Peter. Pete. My little Star-Lord. Star-Lord. That was the one name that actually fit him on either side of the lifeline, wasn’t it? Star-Lord. Star-Lord. Star-Lord. I am Star-Lord. I AM Star-Lord! Star-Lord I AM. I AM!

He fell away from the abomination. His Will was clear and focused as if for the first time ever.

Then there was no more fear. No more pain. No more suffering. Just him plummeting amidst the grasping coils and teeth of a cosmic horror that was too large for even the smallest of its bits and pieces to perceive him. He thought he could finally glimpse it fully, for a moment. A great, monstrous Serpent made of eyes and teeth and flesh and spume that encircled the world. It emerged from the quagmire where all misqualified and aborted desire fell and churned, waiting for fools to look into the abyss and drive them mad with the mistaken belief that it was the true nature of the universe. Peter watched as it emerged fully from the sludge, opened wide its great maw and dove to feast on all the parts of himself he’d cast aside.

Then he was so small that he slipped down between molecules and atoms and photons and everything that composed everything.

The next thing he knew, strands of weaved light rays were all around him. They looked like superheated filaments that connected galaxies. They flew in and out of sight as he fell between and past them. They glinted and twanged and echoed with myriad echoes. Of steps and fires and births and words once spoken and those that might yet be. The filaments stretched and met and continued, some coiled and some not. They travelled eternally in every direction, except when they met others like them and twisted. Twined. Melded. It looked like chaos weaved to form, but he had an odd certainty that there was a deliberate sort of order to it. Like a tapestry.

Or web.

It was strangely beautiful, this Web of Everything. This… this microverse he’d fallen in.

Then he saw it. A massive creature even more unfathomable than the first. A gargantuan spider-shaped being, with myriad legs of length he couldn’t even begin to guess at.

Strangely, the sight of it summoned no fear within him. Not just because of his laser-focused state but because, even in this grand a scope, its features and actions seemed… entirely natural. It hung there, suspended at the center of the Web. Grasping. Pulling. Tugging. Pushing. Weaving the Present out of the strands of every other universe and time that ever was.

Star-Lord’s descent ended abruptly but gently, on a strand thinner than the smallest particle but wide enough for a world to rest upon. He hung there in front of the spider monster’s head and just beheld it, for a time. Up close, the Weaver was… Transcendental. That was the only word that fit its multi-faceted, layered, amalgamated form. Worldscapes and nebulae made up its carapace. Each strand of hair was someone’s past life. Its every eye was a Big Bang. All its legs were made of the immortalised memory of times undone. And on its head, which never showed any acknowledgement of his existence any more than any other part of it – which was none at all – laid a grandiose crown of petals of bright light.

The flower atop the Great Weaver’s head bloomed open then, and from it emerged a… a…

“Hello Peter. I’m Peter.”

A man.

A man stood at the center of the Web of Life, bright with white light over his whole frame. Except where he wasn’t. An endless star field loomed within his higher body, deep and grand amidst the shine. His face was the only part of the man-shaped being which looked the part.

Star-Lord stared at him, disbelieving. “What the heck are _you_ doing here?”

The thirty-some-year old version of Spider-man beheld him mildly. “I am the Spider. The Totem of the Web. The Great Weaver. He who Concludes the Past and Gazes into the Shadows of all Future Things.”

Star-Lord… he was lost for words. It was irritating in the extreme that he would end up speechless even now and here at the apex of his Self-hood, but there it was.

Fortunately, the man was not in the same predicament. “The Hindus tell a tale of one of the great gods Indra, who, following a caprice, incarcerated himself in the body of a pig. He took unto himself a pig mate, and raised a brood of little pigs. He lost all sense of his own identity, and was thoroughly hypnotized with the idea that he _was_ a pig. The fellow-gods grieved at his illusion and his pitiful state. They called upon him to come out of the pig-state, telling him that he was a great god and not a swinish creature wallowing in the mud. He grunted out a denial, saying: ‘I am a _pig_ , not a _god_ – leave me alone!’ They persisted, and he continued to repel them. They killed his pig-mate, and his little pigs, but he squealed out his sorrow and rage, and tried to destroy the gods in his wrath. Finally they killed his pig-body, as a last resort, and lo! Indra, the god, stepped forth in all his glorious power, and laughed in astonishment when he realized the extent and degree of his late illusion. By this parable, the Hindu teachers impress upon their students the fact of their Real Self.”

Star-Lord listened and beheld the Spider with rapt attention, but he didn’t think the story meant what he thought it meant. “I don’t feel that different.”

“That is because you were never more than Star-Lord in any of your lives. You never rose beyond your personality. You never opened your higher sight. You never stepped outside your personality. You never faced the Guardian of the Threshold, That Which Feeds on Weakness and Arises in Might.”

“Are you talking about that… thing?”

“The Guardian of the Threshold is the cumulative evil influence that is the result of the wicked thoughts and acts of the age in which any one may live. It sets itself against all those who would break the confines of flesh, perception and social convention. It is the herd-like thought of easily led fools who fear strength and despise individuality. It assumes to each seeker a definite shape at each appearance, being always either of one sort or changing each time. It is a spectral figure, the abstract of the debit and credit book of the individual and all who share even a scrap of his lineage and karmic debt among all mortal kind.”

It sounded incredibly depressing. How bad off was he – not to mention everyone else – If _that’s_ the form and disposition it took for someone as ordinary as him?

Peter Jason Quill looked at Peter Benjamin Parker, and the pure white frame that haloed that universe of stars that formed his body. He couldn’t help but feel inadequate. But then, why would he even expect otherwise? It’s not like he ever compared favourably with most people he met. After all, he was a walking stereotype. A reckless and rebellious manchild. He wasn’t Captain Kirk. He was college drop-out James Kirk Junior if he’d been raised by a single mother and never had a father to show him how to be strong yet fit into society.

“Self-deprecation like that is why you grew bloated with all the things the Serpent likes to feast upon. Shame. Fear. Horror. People are often protected from these things by the opacity of the region of Prescription and Custom. But the moment this protection is relinquished, and the human spirit pierces the cloud and enters alone on the unexplored regions of Nature, that Horror will appear. It can be successfully countered only by defiance. By knowing yourself. Confidence. Faith.”

That sounded like the exact opposite of his grandpa’s disposition, what the hell?

“Contempt works as well,” the Spider said wryly. “It is its own form of Faith. Not the most conductive to serenity or fellowship though.”

Star-Lord’s mouth twisted at the knowing manner in which this stranger talked to him. But considering the replay of his last life showing on the gap in the Web just over the man’s shoulder, he figured it was probably pointless to remark on it. “What is this place?”

“This is the Web of Life. The Web of Reality. Every reality. Every past. Every possible future. I see them all. I judge which of the former should linger in Consciousness. And I judge which of the latter is most likely to come to pass. Some consider it a nexus between alternate realities as well, but I think you understand the inaccuracy of that interpretation.”

This much he did remember. “There is the past. There are different Dimensions. There is no foreordination. There are no alternate timelines.” Except that the past timelines hadn’t… dissolved exactly, if the term even applied. That was still an ongoing process apparently.

“Correct.”

At least that explained why dimensional travel was possible but never actually solved anything: it was the past all along. You couldn’t change the past. Unless the past was actually part of the present in some strange stable time loop that hadn’t closed yet. Or something.

Maybe. “Why did you bring me here?”

“I did not,” said the Weaver of Worlds. “What you did in pulling upon yourself until you were beyond reach and notice is not unprecedented. Mystics call it the Art of the Small. It is not usually how one goes about contacting the Weaver – there are easier and more reliable ways for that – but it has many uses and benefits. Chiefly in _perspective_.”

“Look, let’s skip the rest of the mumbo jumbo. Give it to me straight.”

“When Ego went on his mating spree, he had no idea what he was doing,” Peter Parker bluntly obliged. “But then, he has little idea of most things. His issue has always been a lack of perspective. And when he finally took a form that gave him a perspective to match that of most other forms of life, he allowed his fear to drive him off. His is a strangely reversed sort of ignorance. He sees the biggest picture but almost none of the smaller ones that combine to form it, and none of the others it helps form in turn. ‘From big know small’ does not occur to him. Neither does the reverse of that. And in terms of power, it is wholly based in his planet-sized, bio-computer brain’s ability to perceive, calculate and control substance and motion via his physical form. Force and matter manipulation, essentially. Spiritually, he is no more awake than the most ordinary man.” The Spider Totem spoke knowingly, with the sort of tone Star-Lord would expect from God. “There is a reason he needs your power but you cannot use it yourself unless bonded to the planet. You have the energy. You have the software. But you have barely a fraction of a fraction of the hardware needed to put it to use.”

That was sort of the opposite of what he expected. But then… the Astral Body was a _body_ , wasn’t it? Even if it wasn’t exactly dense, it was still a body. Substance. “Are you telling me the only reason I’m not Superman is because I’m a power adapter without the computer to run god.exe on?”

“A pan-dimensional reactor would be a better analogy, and godhood presumes more than power over the physical plane but otherwise yes. Just so.”

“Oh that is just bullshit!”

“Ego had no idea what he was doing,” the Spider repeated.

Well this was just perfect. His old man was all Motion and Substance but barely any Consciousness to go with the other two. In other words his old man was a moron. The blind leading the blind. The almighty idiot! “The seed didn’t fall far from the tree at all, did it?” Star-Lord groused.

“On the contrary, you fell quite far indeed,” The Spider disagreed. “In shedding everything that wasn’t the You emergent from your mortal self, you discarded everything that Ego gave you when he became your father instead of Jason Quill in your last life and this one. In so doing, you cast off everything that resembled a quick path to power.”

Wow. So he not only failed at whatever the Ancient One wanted but he failed so badly as to destroy every relevance he might have had in the universe at large and wait a minute! “Grandpa should’ve been my dad?” His everything stalled from the shock, for a moment. “Grandpa was my dad?”

“Just so.” But he didn’t say anything more.

Peter Quill looked at Peter Parker. Questions, requests, bargains and pleas flashes through his imagination, but he followed through on none of them. “You know, you’re being _incredibly_ helpful.”

It was actually down right suspicious.

“To you it might seem so. To me, this is no hardship.” A second gap in the Web filled with light behind him, playing scenes of Peter Parker’s own lives one after another. Some were insignificant. Some were grand. Some were petty. And some seemed like a total waste.

Star-Lord looked at the slow motion replay of Captain Universe Spider-Man being drained of all power and life by a crazy psy-vampire who’d lucked into the power to travel all over the ball of wibbily wobbly timey wimey stuff. “Wow. You got taken out like a chump.”

“I could have overcome him. I could perceive how to cast off every pull on my power and life force that was not my own, in that moment when my end flashed before my eyes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“That timeline was doomed. As were all but one of the others. That was the other thing in that moment of clarity that I perceived. I knew what I did would not matter past the departure of the Spider-Army. I also knew I would resume existence under the Role of a different Peter Parker. One standing just behind me at the time, in fact. I knew how many times it had already happened. And I was sure that even the furthest I could see was not the last.” As he talked, the memory showed what Peter Parker had seen in that last instant. Conclusion. Futility. Finality. A glimpse of the Weave. Specifically, the strings making a whole window snapping and being looped back upon others to weave something new from a point much earlier. “So I disclaimed it all. It allowed me to step outside of time where I could spend however long I wished enjoying some repose and making plans. And if my death forced the other Totems to undergo trials of their own, all the better.”

Star-Lord wondered what it would be like, to learn that your entire world would be just… canceled like that. No matter what you could do. No matter how powerful you were. He couldn’t imagine it. He couldn’t imagine himself handling it well either.

The Weaver smiled slightly at his feeling. “With great power comes great freedom. Freedom to take away the freedom of others. Freedom to impose your will against the wish of those who would take freedom away. Freedom to eschew all responsibility. Freedom to assume the greatest responsibility. Freedom to realise when you’ve already fulfilled all you could fulfil.”

And now Peter was getting Grandpa vibes off the guy, because of course he was.

He didn’t hate it.

Freedom… it sure sounded nice.

… Wait a second.

Star-Lord thought over the whole ordeal that led him here. And everything before it. Throughout this whole stay at the Overlook and everything his grandpa and the Ancient One had done for him. Done to him. Decided for him. He didn’t like what he could finally see.

It had never even occurred to him to say _no_.

“Until one becomes conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.” The Weaver said gently when Peter’s thoughts had achieved that terrible conclusion. “But do you really think there was no rebellion in anything you did?”

What was that supposed to mean?

“Doublethink is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Look.” The Weaver raised a hand in a grand gesture.

A third gap in the Web filled behind him, and this time it was Peter’s bedroom in the Overlook that came in sight. Not the Attainment Hall. Or any other room for spells or meditation. It was the quarters where he’d slept for the past few months and change. Quarters where he now lay, quiet and still and deathly unconscious.

Sitting on a chair at his bedside was his red-eyed, exhausted mother. “How much longer will he be like this?”

“Until he dies or makes it back,” Jason Quill said quietly across from her. He sounded like he was repeating something he’d said dozens of times before. His grandmother or the Ancient One were nowhere to be seen.

Star-Lord looked at the scene, enraptured.

The daughter tried and failed to suppress the latest sob of many. “How are you still so calm about this?”

“Failure has never been Peter’s problem,” Grandpa said, looking over him with that understated pride and love that ached. “It’s always overachievement with him.”

“… Sometimes it feels like you love and believe in him more than I do.”

Jason Quill said nothing. But then, he didn’t have to, did he?

Star-Lord couldn’t look away from the sight. He knew without asking that it was happening in the material world even as they spoke. “How many timelines have collapsed?”

“Many.”

Yes, very helpful. Many dead timelines involves a multitude of dead timelines. How wonderful. “And in how many of those was I his actual son?”

“All but one and this one.”

Well…

Well.

No, you know what, fuck that shit. This was in no way _well_. “What the hell is up with my family tree?” Also his grandfather was stringing an electric guitar and lowly singing something to himself. No seriously, what?

The Spider did not reply.

Star-Lord tore his eyes away from the sight of his grandfather with a musical instrument he didn’t even expect him to want anything to do with and beheld the other man who wasn’t a man. “Why am I still here?”

“Because you do not know how to return. And my help comes with a price.”

Star-Lord tensed and felt abruptly exposed. He realised that the state of razor-sharp focus and intent that had let him escape the Horror and stay Himself had lapsed. He rushed to re-establish it. And when his rush ruined it, he rallied a second time and refocused himself more carefully.

The Spider watched and waited for him to master himself, calm and steady.

It did nothing for his peace of mind. “What do you want?”

“In shedding all that which the Dweller on the Threshold fed upon, you renounced everything that qualified as a swift path to power, so called. This contravenes the whole point of this endeavor and is a great waste besides.”

Star-Lord felt… surprised. Then he felt disbelieving, indignant and finally resigned. It figured that even now he’d jump the hoop and make _assumptions_.

“I will enable you to reclaim the boon that Ego so selfishly bestowed upon you. I will see you through the process that will enable you to understand and use that boon as well. I will even restore your memory of all the lives before, if you wish it.”

That sounded way too good and convenient. “And in return?”

“Three favours from you over the next three years.”

… Of course it would be something like that. “If you think I’m the kind of guy that would sign off on a vague deal like that, no matter how big the rewards, you haven’t been paying attention. And did I mention I’ve been warned against the quick and easy path?”

“This path will be quick and easy for _me_. For you it will be a trial lasting lifetimes upon lifetimes.” Well… that’s him told. “And anyone will agree to anything if they think highly enough of the one making the request.”

“And you think _I_ think highly enough of you to agree to this? This is the first time we’ve met!” Well, second if you counted the baby spiderling in the last future, but who actually took that kid seriously really?

“We are at the Center of the Web,” the Weaver gestured all around them. “My character witness is literally the entirety of history.”

“Show me your life then,” Peter challenged. “Or all of them. Even just highlights will do. The good ones _and_ the bad ones.”

“Very well.”

He agreed. Just like that, he agreed. He showed him. The good, the bad and the ugly, he showed him. He showed him everything. And Star-Lord doubted he was fabricating any of it after the tenth misfortune and accidentally snapping his girlfriend’s neck that seemed to be a staple of every other life Spider-man ever lived.

By the end of it, Star-Lord could only gape at Spider-Man, aghast. “Holy shit, dude. How does your life always go so badly? You’re a bigger Boy Scout than Superman!” Except a lot less lucky. By kilometres. Holy Phoenix on a stick did his lives suck. “You have issues, man.”

“Peter Parker does indeed develop rather self-debilitating complexes.”

What was this, understatement day? But he seemed to have closed that topic, so…“Three favours, huh?”

“Yes.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then you are free to try and find the way back on your own. Or wait until or if the Ancient One finds you instead. It might not even feel that all that much time passes, for all that your body will stay empty in the physical world.”

Well gee, that’s not blackmail at all. “I don’t suppose you can just give me a first-time waiver?”

“Everything has a price.” True. “Whether or not you accept mine is entirely your decision. Just like the consequences of that decision will be entirely your responsibility as well.”

Whatever happened to ‘with great power comes great freedom?’ “Why not just tell me now?” He was probably crazy for considering it, but given the circumstances…

“Because they may turn out to be things you will do anyway, through plan or choice or circumstance. A favour done incidentally is no favour at all.”

“Maximum return on investment, huh?” That… that actually made the entire proposal feel more legitimate and trustworthy than almost anything else he said. “You know I could promise to do your favors and change my mind later.”

“You could.”

“Terrible retribution would ensue for breaking trust I’m assuming. Great plagues on me and mine? Fire and brimstone?”

“Nothing of the sort. However, being Forsworn in the eyes of every entity in the Universe will invite more than enough hardship on its own. I will not need to meddle at all in your future.”

He just had to ask, didn’t he?

“… You know what? Fuck it. I agree to your terms. Let’s do it.”

The Web moved suddenly, two windows coming to the fore and rushing forward to pass over him, the world they projected between their threads covering him like thin film. Both painted in his mind a vivid image of a downed spaceship in America, Missouri. Then he fell in.

In one that repeated countless and countless times with various variations, the shipwreck was salvageable and J’Son of Spartax had a brief, torrid fling with Meredith Quill before erasing the memory of his time together and leaving. In all of them, Peter wound up as a space outlaw eventually. Peter Quill. Star-Lord. Every last one of those timelines was a life relived. And in almost all of them, he and his father became bitter enemies.

In the second web gap that only varied once, J’Son of Spartax crash-landed and did _not_ have a fixable wreck left behind. The situation proved so upsetting as to drastically affect the extent to which he bonds with Meredith. Or rather _doesn’t_ , in the beginning. The extent and also the timing – the time and place of their first coupling is delayed by a month and a day. Different time. Different seed. Different ovum. Different child gets born. Meredith the younger is begotten instead of the boy. No age-old history. No reincarnation. No old soul.

Fast forward several decades and a year, Ego descends from on high to lay with the man’s daughter. He leaves her with kind lies and a mortal illness. And so is finally born the boy into the world.

Peter Jason Quill relived all of the lives he ever lived, from the first all the way to the last. The same way he’d tripped his way into doing before. Except not on the whole. The fast-forward of his re-experience decelerated abruptly just as Ego drove his arms and his feelers straight into his body and… and… and he didn’t touch his soul at all, now did he?

Star-Lord crashed up through his eight-year-old body and then lashed awake, lunging from flat to sitting abruptly. His mother and father jumped to their feet at the sight, made aborted attempts to close in and speak, then they froze at the sight of him. Whatever it was they could see in him. On him. Of him. He sat half-covered in woollen quilts and sheets of linen, but his body felt bottomless and his eyes were skies and full of stars.

Two worlds and moments melded around him, his bedroom at the Overlook interposed by the hall where he’d been shown the All, way back on Ego’s world. He could see it overlaying everything around him. He could see even Ego now, his arms and tendrils stabbing through him but not really. Not here. Not now. Not again.

Yet.

He could almost see what Ego saw too, of space and substance and motion and change that always left everything behind other than him. Could almost remember it. Was on the verge to. Would soon do. Ego didn’t have eyes that could see small enough. Peter did. Ego hadn’t read Alice in Wonderland either, to know that a smaller head meant smaller eyes and better seeing the smaller things in life you’d otherwise miss out on. Peter hadn’t read Alice in Wonderland either, but he had a mother who’d done it for him. His issue had never been a lack of perspective, unlike his father in this life.

Yao portaled into the room, but Star-Lord didn’t pay him mind. Not yet. Instead he looked at his mother and then his grandfather. He thought about the two of them. He thought about how his mama always talked about Ego like he was a gift from God himself. He remembered that grandpa was more likely to believe he was the devil incarnate instead.

He looked between his grandfather and the Ancient One then. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. The three reacted inconsistently. Somewhat. Maybe it was Peter’s voice. Even to his ears it seemed strangely resonant. “I’ve thought about how we all wound up in the same place. About everything you’ve done since then. Everything you told me. Taught me. Decided about me. Decided _for_ me.”

All the while he never even thought to say no.

His mother tensed and clasped her hands over her chest, disturbed and frightened.

His grandfather, on the other hand, suddenly relaxed entirely.

Because of course he wouldn’t be worried about repercussions for that from him. Why would he? It wasn’t these people he was rebelling against. It was Ego. And Yondu. And everything else that was wrong in his life. That was the whole point wasn’t it?

_Until one becomes conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious._

Funny thing, though, was that people did a lot of stuff subconsciously too.

Fuck Yondu and Ego and every other piece of shit in his life, seriously. If there was anything he kept out of this DMT experience, it was that, of everyone who’d ever claimed a paternal role in his existence, his grandfather was the only one among them worthy. It was something he’d only intuited before, when he latched onto the new status quo built on that truth and never looked back.

He looked back now, and he found that his resolve was the same.

But he had some extra clarity now too, and there were other truths that wanted out as well. “You wish to use me.”

“Yes,” grandpa said. “But I’ve no plans to.” It was true. He was not planning to do any such thing regardless of how much he wanted to. Because he remembered his past lives too and was long past being that person.

“No,” Yao said, almost at the same time. “But I might agree to.” It was also true. As true as him having no qualms about striking some sort of deal with him, depending on where he rose to. Or, failing that, aiming him at something.

Star-Lord continued to behold them. Unblinking. “You want me to become your trump card.”

“Yes,” Yao said.

“No,” Grandpa said.

Peter blinked and focused on him, surprised.

“I want you to be a _wild_ card, son,” the man said frankly. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

Were they finally asking him? What he wanted? “… I want to be free.”

“Then you need ultimate power.”

The overlay of his other life wavered. The afterimage of Ego almost shattered like glass. A field of stars looked upon him from behind the eyes of the Ancient One before him. And Peter Quill almost fell out of the dual trance in his surprise. He stared at the grim but settled face of his grandfather. His father no matter what else he was in this life. “What?”

“From the boy, man. From manhood, duty. From duty, honor. From honor, glory. From glory, influence. From influence, authority. From authority, responsibility. From none, worthlessness. From some, dependence. From all, devotion, valour, reverence! But only from strength does freedom spring.” That… that was a creed, wasn’t it? Or maybe Dad had just made it up on the spot. He actually was that kind of person. And he looked at him then, intense and full of conviction like he’d never seen him. “From the boy grows the man, son. And man must grow _mighty_.”

Whoa. That was deep.

He turned to look at his mother expectantly.

Meredith Quill looked like a deer that had just miraculously survived being run over by a truck. “Er… Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind?”

Peter blinked. He rather felt like he’d tumbled down in a bewilderment.

“Well it’s all a bit out of nowhere, don’t you think?” His mother said defensively. Or fairly sniffled, to be fair. “Until just a minute ago I thought you were dying!”

Maybe Ego wasn’t the only one with no idea what he was doing.

“Boy…” The Ancient One finally addressed him, looking him over with eyes beyond the flesh. This was the part where he would demand to know what he had done and dealt with and agreed to do and sold his future for- “What are you waiting for?”

Or maybe he should really stop making assumptions and articulate whatever idea had popped into his head. “I don’t know…”

“Peter Jason Quill,” the sorcerer called, forcing him to refocus in the now. “What is on your mind? Use short words. Simple ones.”

Okay? Unfortunately, you only wondered when you didn’t know what you were getting at. Or how to get at it. Or both, which was certainly the case here. “I’m wondering about life, power and time.”

Mom and Dad looked even more lost than he was, for once.

Yao, though, looked thoughtful. “There is a stream of consciousness that comes to mind. With your permission, I shall articulate it.”

He suddenly wanted his permission? Well, okay. “Go on then.”

“Whether through death, ascension or whatever else, a soul eventually awakens on its own plane of the Astral. When it does so, it often finds it difficult to realize that it is not alive in the flesh, and often much time is required before it realizes its true condition. Then it begins to manifest an interest in its surroundings, and pays many visits on its own and other planes, renewing old acquaintances and relationships and manifesting the activities quite natural for a human being under such circumstances. Other souls, however, while attached to material things, nevertheless have had _ideals_ during their life. Things for which they had hoped, and dreamt, prayed and longed. The higher on the planar scale, the more advanced the nature of the ideals. But the principle is the same. And for the lowest to the highest of these ideal degrees, the Astral Life contains that peculiar and wonderful condition or state known as the ‘Idealistic State.’”

That… that sounded strangely familiar even though he’d never heard about such a thing in any of his many lives.

“In this Idealistic State is the real Astral Life of the soul, into which it enters after it has tired of the conditions it finds at first on the Astral Plane. It is composed of a condition or state, or series of such conditions or states, in which it lives out in vivid imagination, or realistic dream-like states, all of its unrealized personal ideals, hopes, expectations, desires, ambitions, aspirations, longings, and inclinations of its nature.”

… Star-Lord felt a very particular sort of _interest_ ignite in his chest.

“It may be objected that this is but a state of illusion or delusion, and not a reality,” the Sorcerer said, nodding meaningfully in Dad’s direction. “But it must be remembered that even on the Material Plane ‘Dreams are true while they last.’ On the Astral Plane, in the Idealistic State, these dreams exceed in vividness and reality anything that the embodied mortal ever experiences – itself just a series of mental states in the end. So far as the soul is concerned, the experiences through which it lives in the Idealistic State are just as real as anything that it ever experienced in physical life. Every element of reality is there. And there is a reality about it that all advanced occultists recognize.”

“… I’m starting to think you’re about to offer something we could have _desperately_ used the moment we first met,” Dad grumbled.

“In this Idealistic State, the dreaming soul lives out countless lives, of infinite variety,” The Ancient One said, not commenting on the sentiment. “Provided one trusts me enough to let me handle and influence their very souls and self-awareness, I should be able to emulate the conditions or process for you. Any of you. Or all.”

The sheer scope of what had just been said… it was enough to blow Peter’s mind.

“It will only be for one lifetime, particularly if I am to impose certain parameters of nature and its scale.” The old Sorcerer looked pointedly between Peter and Jason Quill as he said it. “But even one lifetime can count for much.”

Peter looked at his father, thinking about what an understatement that was. But anything he wanted to ask or say to the man would have to wait because there was something more relevant to address before it. “It won’t work for me,” Peter told their host. “Not like that. Not like this.” Not while he was brain-deep in seeing the universe like a god had made him see in a former future.

“Doublethink is the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them,” Yao countered with words he’d heard so very recently but also long ago.

In the end, Star-Lord accepted. And because he agreed, his mother also agreed. For her, grandma (mom?) agreed too, once she was fetched from where she was having an early lie-in. His father was the only one who agreed as much for his own sake as his, though Peter didn’t entirely grasp the depth of his feelings until the end.

The end of the dream that wasn’t dream, that is. That’s how it all went, ultimately. They all lied down in the same place and let Yao do the rest. They didn’t even see him cast a spell.

“The physical side of this is almost irrelevant. Learn well, however, and you too might one day learn how to shape moments in **Eternity!** ”

Privately Star-Lord thought he was farther along than Yao thought. He though he understood now, what the man-shaped star field was that he could see through his eyes like the man could see Ego through his.

It wasn’t the man himself.

“-. 20 January, 1989 .-“

On the first day, a family slept and lived a long, fulfilling life.

On the second day, the father ascended to the higher planes, a star that flashed so bright it hid whole worlds behind its light.

And on the third day, the son awoke in the bed where he had up to then slept like the dead.

Then he burst out of the eldritch guts of a most cranky snake and almost nuked the Astral Overlook off the face of the Earth.

Turns out yanking himself out of the chittering belly of the Chaos Serpent and compressing his greater self on every level and plane at once was not the best idea. Not when imposing ultimate pressure and friction upon Substance invariably _set things on fire_.

The wards shunted him all the way to Tunguska just in time for the explosive reaction of everything within his bounds to blast the plateau to twice its prior size. The Ancient One then teleported to the fringes of his span and portaled him away before he could blast a crater three times the size of _that_. Which he then promptly did at the South Pole instead, creating a massive new landmark that was only natural insofar as it technically qualified as an act of god.

Star-Lord blasted out of the planet’s atmosphere all the way into space before he could cause an ice melt big enough to really affect the climate. He blasted even faster and then breached all the way past the speed of light when the electromagnetic waves started to reach far enough to affect technology and people way down on the planet. He idly wondered what he looked like on whatever telescopes didn’t burn out due to his passage. Probably a giant, exploding cloud of red and gold and white.

He had _vastly_ underestimated the degree of correlation between planar frequencies. The effect that contraction – Motion – would inflict on the Substance of the world within his astral and etheric bounds. Or maybe he had overestimated the degrees of separation between them all.

Even now he still overstepped and made _assumptions_.

He still had enough presence of mind to coordinate with the Ancient One on the rituals they had adapted. Caught up in fire-fighting and repair efforts as he was, the Sorcerer reacted with uncharacteristic exasperation and incredulity at the other end of his Astral emanations. Still, he did his part on the other side of the vibrational boundary despite his misgivings about Peter’s priorities.

At least that much went well, Peter thought sourly when he stopped in the Oort Cloud and took stock of himself. Amazingly, his body hadn’t burnt to ash despite him being his own miniature sun. Or, well, a molten-hot planetoid quickly shrinking relative to the rest of physical reality, but semantics. Incidentally, his body was also quickly growing and changing to the prime of his adult life because of the rituals he’d just undertaken. Good.

Star-Lord’s ability to perceive and affect the physical plane decreased the more he pulled his Self in on itself. Even though it did not lose volume in the slightest, the physical space it took up shrunk the more the willed his outside to contract. The inside stayed the same grand, massive primordial planet that he’d have a lot of fun customising in the future, whenever he was at rest. He even had a lot of ideas already, about how to work around or offset the limits of wanting to continue enjoying existence as a humanoid man. Plus the danger of fully exposing himself to everything that could infringe on his freedom. Until then, though, he’d gladly settle for whatever power he could manifest on the familiar, more human scale. He had filled every empty space between his cells and component atoms with Astral power already, to the point where even full-speed planetary re-entry shouldn’t harm him now. And he had 1,024 eyes all open wide, grown on every frond of his physical-astral nexuses. He’d even optimised somewhat the eyes that came with his flesh and blood body. He could easily wait to grow and open the really big spiritual ones, and whatever other organs he grew throughout his planet for himself.

It was hours before he compressed his Celestial Inner World enough to settle it safely in the soul chamber of his Human Astral Body. Between the distraction provided by his father’s oh so obvious Enlightenment, and his pre-emptive draw of his outer emanations inward before his own Ascension started, there shouldn’t be anyone aware of the birth of a new cosmic… whatever he was. Well, no one not intimately aware of the Ancient One’s occult undertakings at least, but it wasn’t like Eternity wasn’t literally _made_ of everything happening all the time.

As soon as he started on the way back, Star-Lord was immediately challenged in his ability to not affect his surroundings in ways unwanted. For all that his focus had been on internalising his Celestial nature, his human astral shell had grown immensely in the doing and needed to be compressed as well. At least until he could get some practice at not looking into every object and mind and soul within a hundred miles. At minimum.

Secrecy sure was a chore. But you weren’t much of a wild or trump card if every psychic and their grandmother could see you coming years in advance from galaxies away.

The vacuum of space within star systems wasn’t that much friendlier than the dust and gas-filled extrasolar space, what with the pull of the star and planets and immense levels of unfiltered heat and radiation that could strip life from flesh. He quickly learned the necessity of a protective force field the hard way. He was no Superman, though, to turn his aura into an otherwise unobstructive and invisible coating over his whole body. The best he could do so early in his development, Star-Lord found, was limiting the matter-warping effects of his presence to a red and gold aura leaking all over the place like spectral fire.

Huh. Neat.

Hopefully not too visible to telescopes and the naked eye though.

When he came out of warp speed in high orbit, he immediately made for the Astral Overlook. The sight on the other end of his clairvoyance indicated that his mother was preparing the first family meal of their real life while Grandmother was still asleep. Which was really strange, what kind of woman doesn’t react enough to wake up even when a youth ‘stealing’ ritual adds decades to her life? But on looking ahead with his Astral sight – the Ancient One had excluded him from the concealing aspect of his wards, how nice of him! – he realised that the spirit of his father was nowhere to be found. What?

With worry he hadn’t expected to feel so soon in his new life, he paused in low orbit and looked inward and high.

Fortunately he spotted him quickly because, for once, Jason Quill wasn’t concealing his presence at all. Unlike practically all of the time in their Idealistic life, which the man had seen the truth of and transcended half-way through because he was just cool like that.

Relieved but disconcerted, Peter Quill flew and portaled to Antarctica again.

He appeared high in the sky, above the massive cloud formed from the steam of the ice he’d flash-boiled. It had been hours and hours since, but it still lingered. Which was actually convenient because it meant he couldn’t be immediately spotted despite it still being afternoon at the South Pole at this time of year. Good. Learning to contain all his astral emanations and fade into the background of the planes had been the whole point of that short moment, when his planetary mind was fully unfettered. Invisibility in the physical was proving vastly more troublesome, but his Father’s physical eyes probably weren’t much better than his were at this point. And until he properly familiarised himself with the Substance, Motion and Consciousness of the real universe, Jason Quill’s astral perception should lag behind his own as well.

Peter Quill descended slowly, ignoring the cloud and ice crystals around him to behold the other man. Though he’d been both aware and unaware of his undreaming self during the life in the Dream, he’d never gotten to actually see what his father looked like on the Astral plane. He’d never advanced in the occult enough to find ways around his concealment, and his World Mind had had to be kept still and quiescent until they were done living their ideal life.

Jason Quill… looked like nothing he expected. In fact, Peter couldn’t be entirely sure there was a single cohesive Astral body to be found at all. All he could see were meandering, glowing filaments. Strands whirling and long. They prodded, shone and shifted all over and around the space his father stood within. Pure and shining tendrils of white smoke, curled tightly and vaguely into the shape of a human. And at the mid-point of every strand and cord, eyes of fire gazed where all the others didn’t.

Peter Quill stared, confounded. The only familiar thing was the number of tendrils. 1024. The same number as his and most everyone else’s so-called chakra petals. Even that was a smaller number than the eyes of fire grown into them, of which Peter had grown plenty of his own. But this was nothing like he’d expected at all!

Each of those things sure looked like they had what it took to possess all and sundry though. Especially if they could travel and stretch as far as he thought they could. Which was a _lot_.

The man was gazing in the distance. Upwards. The same as he’d done in another time each night, staring for hours at the stars. He felt… Mournful. Longing. Resigned.

It was so surprising that Peter couldn’t maintain his concealment.

Suddenly, the light twinged and every part of the spirit focused on him completely. Surprised. Pessimistic. Hopeful. Then it leapt straight to where he was planning to land.

Peter Jason Quill portaled the rest of the way down to the already frozen surface of the new lake he’d created. “~Father~ Your handsome son is coming ho-~”

He thought to surprise him by singing the best part of the Hymn of Spartax but he couldn’t get the verse out because Jason Quill landed from his 100 yard-long jump and embraced him. Peter was so taken aback he didn’t think of hugging back. He couldn’t even withdraw his auric field in time. It scalded and burned the older man but it didn’t seem to matter to him at all. His father just held him. Hugged him. Clung to him.

Why was he so…?

… Oh.

“I wasn’t going to just disappear on you, Dad.”

“You always did before.”

His past lives played at the back of his mind in a flash. “I always did, didn’t I?” In those rare cases where he went to visit at all, always briefly and on a collision course with whatever interests and goals hid Dad held for his own. In some lives, his dad wasn’t even the sort of jerk that would explain the estrangement and conflict.

Peter Quill sighed and returned the embrace of his father.

Jason Quill tightened his hold and pressed his cheek again the top of his head. He was still taller than him, Peter noticed. And always so very tender. He didn’t mind it.

“I love you, son.”

He minded those words even less, but he never got any reply past the lump in his throat when he heard them.

They stood there for a while. Enough for Peter’s mind to wander over his surroundings. The new lake seemed to span some three hundred miles in diameter and was a perfect circle in Antarctica’s otherwise mountainous surface. The top water layer had already frozen over as well, thickly enough to easy support a man or five. Astral traces indicated that a very specific form of life had spent some time diving and swimming through it in the recent past.

Peter wondered about his father. Had he gone diving thinking he might have been down there?

Eventually, the man reluctantly pulled away from his son and rubbed lightly at his blistered cheek. “Your control is still shit.”

“Well that’s not exactly fair. I’m not the one who jumped head-first into a glowing ET from space.”

Averting what might otherwise have become an awkward conversation, the Ancient One chose that moment to portal his way into the situation, though he looked far less ancient than before.

Good. That meant he followed through on a youth ‘stealing’ ritual of his own as well.

“I admit,” Yao said in that calm, kindly old man voice that nevertheless sounded less gravelly than before. He had half as many wrinkles now and his hair was black instead of white, Peter noted. “This is without a doubt the most personally beneficial apotheosis I ever witnessed.” He tapped his cane on the ice cap, sending vibrations of sound and light traveling outwards through the ice, like fractals. “And I suspect I have only begun to grasp the full scope of results long-term.”

Substance and Motion thrummed all around them, as if the ritual to steal lifespan from an immortal god and rejuvenate three different people at once back to their prime had used up a bare pittance of power. Of course, that was exactly what had happened. And it had all been his plan from start to finish, Peter thought with the satisfaction of a job well done.

Practicalities notwithstanding.

Hold on, had he performed the magic _here_?

Come to think of it, there were distinctly arcane-like circles and lines made from colored ice all around them. Had the Sorcerer used this spot for that particular magic? He supposed it would make sense, depending on just how much cosmic power had been left over before he blasted off.

“Should I spend some time cleaning up after myself?” Peter asked.

“Perhaps if miscreants gather in too high a number or frequency, but for now I believe the world can be well-served by a place of power such as this.”

New. Powerful. Untainted. Associated with birth, rebirth and ascension.

“Incidentally, the young miss would like it known that dinner is almost ready,” Yao told them before nodding at them both and stepping back into his home. The portal shut behind him.

Arctic winds blew over the two of them. They ignored it. Neither man felt the cold.

“So,” Dad said. “Ready to head home?”

Ready yes. Willing? “… I think I’d rather fly for a while.”

“Ah,” Jason Quill smiled fondly. “I’ll wait here then.” An astral strand detached from him entirely, brightest and soundest and burning to Peter’s higher sight with three pairs of gold eyes. It wrapped around Peter’s body until it seemed to almost belong to him. There wasn’t even a crystal cord connecting it back to its origin, even though there was always one to follow back to one’s body until and unless they died. Peter could have done so to return from the Web of Life, had he the eyes to see such subtle things back then, which he didn’t.

“Stay where I can see you?” Jason Quill entreated.

“How far is that?”

“As far as you’ll let me.”

Considering that the man barely looked different even after the rejuvenating ritual, the subtext of _promise_ in that answer would probably go very far indeed.

Peter could cast it off easily. Or shunt it to his inner world to wander forever, blind to whatever he did outside. Discard it. Discard him. He felt like doing none of those things now.

Instead he stepped back, jumped from the South Pole all the way into low orbit in a single bound, and circumnavigated the world.


	6. Half and Half

“-. 6 March, 1989 .-“

The light burned.

He remembered pain. It wasn’t like his Loony didn’t backhand or knock him off his lap every other week from sheer absent-mindedness. Sometimes he was even too asleep to react fast enough. This pain was nothing like it though. Nothing he could shrug off. Nothing he could forget. Nothing like everything he had grown soft to, in exchange for everything good that came from being a companion animal.

Nothing he could _forgive_.

It wasn’t until after several intermittent lifetimes of self-destroying agony that the strangeness of being _capable_ of forgiveness occurred to him. That the strangeness of being capable of _conceiving_ of it struck him. Of being able to conceive of anything. Any notions. Any ideas.

Inception was his next trial, forced on him through more genetic-altering rays, vivisection, and robot bits and bobs driven through his skull base and his spine. Inception. The act, process, or instance of beginning. Beginning of understanding. Beginning of understanding many things. Complex feelings. Concepts. Notions. Suffering. Ideas.

The pain was with him and helplessness was with him and so was terror and confusion and resentment and rage, and the essential circuits of his torturers were just out of his reach and he still couldn’t move because of the restraints but he was getting _ideas_.

Then the ceiling caved in and the robots surrounding him were blown away from his vivisection table.

“Let’s make something clear!” boomed the voice of a Shrink come again, because he couldn’t be anything less. Not when he loomed so tall and had a voice that could subdue the rowdiest of Good Humor Men. “This one here’s _my_ buddy. You want to get to him, you go through me. Or, more accurately, I go through you!”

Darkness took him on waves of soothing relief and a vague feeling of irony.

Then he had his first dreams, and they were short-lived indeed. They quickly gave way to knowledge, understanding and memory of many timelines already lived. Some had been fulfilling. Some had been boring. Some had sucked. And some had never even finished. But they were all _his_ so what was Quill playing at, asking if he wanted to keep them!? Of course the answer was yes!

What kind of moron actually asks for permission before curing his buddy’s amnesia, seriously.

Rocket Raccoon awoke in a familiar sickroom in a mental hospital on a planet he never expected or wished to see again. At least he wasn’t in a box this time though.

Standing on two feet and feeling _no pain_ – not even in his spine which had ached and burned during the entirety of his last life – he inspected himself for… whatever or other. Noticing that someone had propped a mirror against the far wall at some point, he walked over and studied his reflection more thoroughly. Nothing was new. And nothing seemed to be missing. Other than the old age he was always _not_ thinking about due to his substandard lifespan, but good riddance to that!

Good riddance to the nervous meltdown he had the first time he saw himself in a mirror too. Shit, but it’d been so long since he was soft. He didn’t miss it.

He turned away from the mirror and resolutely made for the door.

Then he detoured to the box next to the bed that he’d been too self-absorbed to notice before.

His laser pistol! Or a shiny new replica, but he’d take it. It even had his overcharge module! He’d definitely be taking his jumpsuit too. In fact, best he do that first. Pretending you weren’t ashamed and humiliated while having to walk around naked was not fun or easy at all.

He found a few grenades under the clothing too, along with zip-ties, a multi-tool, and almost everything else he was used to carrying in his various pockets and pouches. Which, he was pleased to find, were already sewn into his coveralls just the way he remembered them. How thoughtful.

Disturbing too, because how did Quill know about every last knickknack in his drawers? Even the cup was there.

Trying to not think about it too much, he charged his pistol and moved towards the door.

It opened automatically.

Right. Not a prisoner. Not like the first time when he had to shoot his way out of the compound as part of his oh so sapience-affirming psychotic break.

The hallway was almost as familiar as the private berth he’d just left, but he didn’t follow it out in search of freedom and friends just yet. He instead snuck from one door to the next of the curiously robot-free floor until he spotted someone who wasn’t either insane or catatonic. Which, as it happened, turned out to be a woman bearing a clear resemblance to one Peter Quill even with her face mask covering most of her face. He could smell it. It was the only reason he didn’t hold her at gunpoint when he saw what she was doing.

“Ahem.”

The woman looked up from where she was force-feeding one of the more belligerent Loonies some sort of draught.

“What are you doing to’em?”

“Hopefully starting him on the path to sanity.”

“Say what?”

The woman fluffed the now drowsy Loony’s pillow and straightened up to face him. “I’m assuming you’re Peter’s friend?”

Identify confirmed. “Who’s asking?”

“His mother.” Identity _not_ confirmed. Not a sister? But she didn’t look all that old. “So?”

“Yeah, I know’im. Name’s Rocket.”

“Meredith,” she walked over and bent over to hold out his hand. “Pleasure.”

Rocket Racoon shook the hand of Star-Lord’s no longer long-dead mother with a distinct feeling of surrealism. “Yeah, nice to meet ya. So, the Loonies?”

“The reason even the offspring of the people in this system go crazy isn’t because there’s something wrong with the Keystone Quadrant. More like something is missing. Specifically, an entire gamut of plants.”

The woman explained while she worked, to Rocket’s growing bemusement, about how the people who first turned the Keystone Quadrant into their mental asylum were too focused on studying the mind and not enough on the physical side of the equation. Which is why they never figured out the physical cause of the onset of insanity – there was an entire set of nutrients and chemicals people weren’t getting from their food. The most important one, if you considered that some endo-whatsit system had more receivers than the nervous system of a human being. Which, the woman said, they’d found to be the case for more or less every other humanoid being they’d encountered so far. The stuff just didn’t exist in the environment.

“The compounds are found in trace amounts in many plants on Earth and other planets, but many of them are picky about soil and climate. Fortunately, there’s one plant that’s easy enough to introduce into the environment here. Most environments.” She told him after she finished force-feeding her last self-appointed patient under the attentive eye of a robot caretaker Rocket had been too distracted by painlessness-induced euphoria to notice coming in. “It should otherwise have a minimal impact on the food chain as well. Among other benefits.”

Yeah, no kidding. If he heard her right, it could grow in 3-4 months and was majorly composed of edible protein including all essential amino acids, plus some numbered stuff called omega essential fatty acids. The plant could also easily and cheaply be used to produce over 50,000 commercial products including anything wood, paper cotton and plastic could be used for. The toy makers were going to save a fortune. Best of all, the plant was renewable and didn’t need to be genetically modified because it was naturally pest resistant.

Rocket stared from a balcony down at the large park that had been turned into a crop field by disturbingly animated robots literally overnight. There were also a bunch of Loonies moving about the place, watching and praising and even helping out. He recognised some of them. There were a few that weren’t supposed to have the mental coordination to walk. And wasn’t that robot on the right one of the ones who was cutting him open the other day? Or however long it had taken him to remember everything before waking up? And how the hell was everyone so buddy-buddy all of a sudden? Sanity wasn’t nearly entertaining enough from the outside! “Did you just derail the creation of Halfworld?”

“Who knows what will happen in the future?”

Nothing Rocket wouldn’t mind seeing if he were inclined to stay, which he wasn’t. It was kind of surprising to him really. Pretty much everyone he knew in past timelines was already alive and established. Rocket was among the very last genetically and cybernetically modified companion animals. It was why he had greater strength than his original species did – the robots had perfected their induced evolution process and were making one last run of sapient animals as a way to experiment with secondary genetic enhancements. A research field they’d gladly drop once they were done waiting for the last of their created replacements to mature and take their place as caretakers of the Loony bin.

Rocket found he wasn’t interested in reliving that particular segment of his original life. Lives. Even if it would probably be hilarious to see Lylla go spastic over her toy empire crumbling once the people stopped being entertainment-dependent and demand imploded. Then again, she would probably just diversify her business into everything else the Loonies would need. Or whatever they’d be called once they were no longer Loonies. Why, they might even become productive members of society! That’s give Wal Rus something new to complain about. Wouldn’t that be a sight?

Whatever. It had nothing to do with him. “Where’s Quill?”

“Entertaining the people in the outdoor area on the other side of the compound. I’m just about done here, I’ll lead you there.”

He didn’t need the help but he didn’t refuse her either. He wouldn’t want ‘I blew off your mom’ to be the first thing he said to his old buddy. Not that there would have been such a risk if Quill had bothered being there when he woke up, but whatever.

Not like he was disappointed or anything.

By the time they reached the elevator, loud music could clearly be heard coming from outside the Cuckoo’s Nest. By the time they made it to the ground floor, the music was even more clearly mixed up with the sounds of guns and blaster shots. What?

Rocket broke into a run and almost forgot to stop and check the situation from cover. Not that he could catch more than the barest glimpse of Peter Quill shooting flying saucers with his element guns before the guy’s mother just sauntered out the doors as if nothing was happening! “Hey, what are ya doin’!” Rocket rushed out to stop her only to stagger to a bemused halt when Quill started to sing in the middle of a gunfight like a complete _dumbass_.

_~For what I was_

_I'm doomed to be_

_The tempter and the secret foe_

_Cause I am hell and hell is me_

_Pure hate will grow~_

Wait, what?

_~Still I claim to be the chosen one and_

_Still I claim_

_This is rebellion rising~_

Rocket stumbled to a gaping halt at the top of the stairs to the district clinic.

_~First amongst equals_

_We're bound to no law_

_There's no one before us_

_Ethereal sons_

_Now disobey~_

A Spartoi on the guitar. Self-animated floating drums. A very familiar friend doing vocals while using the flying cymbals as rhythm-consistent target practice. Both in the midst of a screaming crowd of Loonies bursting at the seams with good fun. All televised by a bunch of floating drones shooting about.

Rocket Racoon gaped in outrage at the sheer audacity of what he was seeing. His so-called ‘friend’ couldn’t be bothered to wait at his bedside because he was too busy having a concert! And he didn’t even have the courtesy to stay consistent when it came to his total lack of singing ability! He was suddenly a great singer now? And what the unholy hell was his good for nothing Dadperor doing here!?

_~Awake and arise ~ You'll be free~_

Allusions to his late braindeadedness weren’t any better!

It was around the time Rocket was seriously considering a live action demo of ‘shoot it where the sun don’t shine’ as an answer to the question of _~ How can we take it away ~ From someone who has no right? ~No right to control the divine ~_ when his entirely legitimate outrage was derailed entirely.

He was picked up and snuggled. What the shit?! No, you know what? Screw this, screw all of this, faces are coming off-! “Little Rocket!” His trigger finger faltered. “You really are alright! Your friends promised you would, but I worried anyway! And what friends they are. You are lucky, little one.”

… Loony? “…Khevix?”

“You do speak! They promised you would but I – and you know my name!” The man who had no business being out of his wheelchair hugged Rocket close and stroked his head in that way that never failed to make him stammer and wobble and curl in his arms. Just like that, he was back to being the comfort toy he’d been for the entirety of his early life. “I’m so glad. I was so afraid I’d never hold you again after the robots snatched you from me and carried you off!” His Loony sniffled and buried his face in his fur. “This is the happiest day of my life.”

A black hole had replaced Rocket’s brain. A gaping maw of dark emptiness where sane reactions to madness should be.

“Little Rocket. Little Rocket.” Khevix kept muttering and sniffling and thankfully not rocking back and forth or using him like a kerchief this time. “Little Rocket. I know you won’t want to stay here, much less waste your life on a decrepit old fossil like me.” His Loony also hadn’t gotten locked on muttering his name for hours like he usually did when he got emotional. “But I’d like at least one last day together. Even just what’s left of today is fine! Think you can stand me for that long? One last time?”

… _~ Stay silent ~ Until the end of the world ~_ Oh fuck you, Quill. “… Yeah, okay.”

Rocket Racoon took the time out of his new lease on life to spend with Old Loon Khevix one last day. And it really was okay. Because he was young again and had lost and regained everything again and his Loony wasn’t loony and was even walking unaided so this was literally the best day of Rocket’s life too and fuck you, that’s why! Okay?

Okay.

And so! After spending the evening reeling at Peter Quill’s astonishing aim, incredible pitch and even more absurd lung capacity, Rocket Racoon finally climbed down from his clingy, tearfully reluctant Loony’s lap. And any claims that he himself was in any way clingy or reluctant to conclude that form of companionship was a terrible, vicious lie!

“Quill!” he hollered, stomping forth when the man finally disentangled himself from his new adoring fans. “You… You… You. You-YOU!”

“Rocket!” The man swept forth, knelt and _hugged him_.

Rocket froze.

Quill – the happily laughing _jackass_ – took that as permission to cuddle him and hold him and rub his cheek into the top of his head and declare his boundless happiness at being reunited and everything else that came with his first and worst Khevix impression and – NO! “Gerroff, get off me you lunatic!” Rocket shrieked.

Shrieked!

Quill was going to pay for this if it’s the last thing he’ll do!

“-. .-“

It was some time later, after they boarded the second-rate Ravager ship and took off somewhere or other _without_ leaving the planet, that the once-and-possibly-at-some-point-once-again Guardians of the Galaxy had their first actual conversation. Just him and Quill, that is. The woman was an unknown quantity and the presence of Dadperor was as suspicious as dog shit on a planet of cats.

“Do you resent me?” Quill asked, sitting right next to him on the bench in engineering.

“For treating me like I’m a damn toy?” The use of anger was reflexive, a way to buy himself some time to process being asked something like that so upfront.

“For being so happy to see you again that I’m willing to suffer anything you would do in revenge for basking in your existence.”

“… You’re an asshole,” Rocket muttered, looking down at the bomb he was making. It figured the guy would destroy every last shred of bad feelings he felt. How the hell was he supposed to stay angry at someone who told him something like that? Much less a friend? _The_ friend. “How do I remember all these alternate timelines?” Rocket asked as a way to deflect.

“They’re all past lives. There are no ‘alternate’ timelines,” Quill said with a loose flick of the arrow Yondu was never going to use again. He proceeded to idly spin it over his fingers in progressively convoluted patters while he explained things to him. Or gave him the summary of a summary of a long mystical discussion he’d apparently had with some wizard or other that had meddled in his life this time. All of which basically boiled down to ‘it’s all the past.’

Ish.

“Well that sure explains everything,” Rocket said sarcastically when he was done. As he always did when he didn’t fully understand something and wanted to mask his shame at feeling inadequate. “But how did _you_ make me remember it?”

“Haven’t I told you? I’m a god now.”

… That statement had no business at all being spoken in such an airy and mild voice! “A god, he says,” Rocket sniped when nothing else came to mind and he reflexively took refuge in being an asshole again. “A god that still listens to daddy.”

The biggest asshole.

“Yeah,” Peter said blithely, which was the one thing Rocket hadn’t prepared for. “Dad’s pretty great.”

“…What.”

“He’s the first one who recovered his past timeline memories, did I tell you that?” No he hadn’t. “Literally hundreds of years of being a jerk and one of the bad guys, and what did he do the moment he remembered it? He turned his life around. Just like that.” Quill snapped his fingers. The memory of a purple-skinned nutjob passed over Rocket at the act. He shuddered. That was one association he didn’t want to make with Quill ever. “All because he wanted to be a worthy father. He spent months helping me unfuck myself. And literal decades more raising me after that. It was all quite the involved mystical arrangement, let me tell you. Of course, it helps when you’re the personal project of the Wizard in Chief.”

“… How’s about you start at the beginning and give the whole story?”

And so, Quill promptly did just that.

It was a surprisingly short story when you didn’t account for past life regression, cosmic spider gods and a lifetime spent dreaming of living an ideal life. Which was the thing Rocket had the biggest issue wrapping his mutant brain around. Say you live the best life you could have lived. Okay, then what? How do you come back from that? Move on from that? How do you live knowing your best and happiest times are over and were never real to begin with?

“Oh, they were real,” Peter said when Rocket surprised himself by actually daring to ask that aloud. “As for the rest, it helps that the people I shared that life with are still with me now. Or, well, not all of them _here_ here right now. But even mom is fine, doing her own thing back home. The thing, though, is this: I’m more now that I was when I went under. New. Better. Greater. In knowledge. In skill. In imagination.” Something unfathomable overshadowed Peter’s otherwise ordinary self, for a moment. “And in _ambition_.” It passed so fast Rocket almost doubted he’d seen it. “Whatever I do from here out will vastly outshine everything I did in that one Idealistic Life. At least, that’s what I expect.” He looked down at him then, smiling confidently. Freely. Tenderly even. “I’ve already brightened it through you, haven’t I?”

That… Rocket was… His words caught in his throat.

That was it then. Quill finally did it. He left him speechless. A speechless jackass to populate his very own one-person happy jackass circle.

Where was the disintegrate-on-impact Galacian Wall when you needed it?

“Do you resent me?” Peter asked again.

No. Yes. No. How the fuck should he know? “I’ll let you know when I’m good and ready.” Seriously, the worst.

“I expect I’ll be hearing a lot of that,” Peter said wistfully. “But such is my burden and I bear it gladly.”

That was the other thing: the way he spoke now. Smoothly. Easily. Cultured. Peter Quill didn’t speak like that. Hell, the closer Rocket thought to their latest adventures that no longer were a thing, the more obvious it became that Star-Lord wasn’t supposed to be even remotely like this! There were only two things that made Star-Lord project authentic confidence, instead of that sad pretense at wit he used all the time in their last life: danger to loved ones and danger to everything. But now he was calm and self-assured all the time. Confident. Settled. Valiant.

Regal.

Rocket smelled Quill elder’s hand in this from lightyears away. But the disturbing part was that he didn’t have it in him to mind it. It suited Quill well, to be like this. Like… like he’d gotten over every last one of his issues and finally become _Great_.

The black, red and gold digs weren’t a bad touch either.

“Here,” Quill handed him a holoprojector before standing up. “I’m designing the ultimate spaceship. I’d appreciate your input when you have time to kill.”

Familiar ground, finally, what the fuck took him so long? “Sure, why not?”

Star-Lord smiled at him in that tender way he looked at people now, then he turned and swept out of the bay with his coat billowing in his wake.

It was an hour and a fair bit of technical reading later that something pulled Rocket out of math and schematics.

“Calling Rocket Racoon to boarding. Repeat, Rocket Racoon to boarding.”

Rocket bristled at Quill Elder being anywhere near the bridge intercom, but he told himself not to blow his top just yet. Not as long as the man stayed professional and technically owned the ship instead of Quill or him.

For now.

He did make a point of not rushing though. Stars forbid the old man think he had him waiting hand and foot. Rocket even went as far as taking the scenic route, which incidentally let him look outside through the service windows. At first he only saw a field of those plants that Peter’s mom had shown him a hologram of. Except this was much bigger than the one at the Cuckoo’s Nest and the things were already full grown – how long had they even _been_ on this planet? Then he saw the guaranteed reason why he’d been called, and suddenly he couldn’t be arsed to care what Quill Elder thought about him at all.

He broke into the fastest sprint of his new life and almost tumbled tail-arseways out of the ship when he made it to the loading ramp. “GROOT!”

“I am Groot!”

Rocket damn near flew down the ramp. “Groot! Old buddy, old pal!” Little sapling that he still had memories or rearing just yesterday and shut up, he wasn’t choked up at all!

“I am Groot!” The giant, fully grown Flora Colossus caught him mid-leap and hugged him, all-enfolding snap-growths and all.

“What are ya doing here?” He said hoarsely and shut up!

“I am Groot!”

“Growing weeds!? What have I told you about pro bono work?”

“I am Groot!”

“Paid work? Hah, I’ll bet. Do I wanna know how little they’re paying you?”

“I am Groot!”

“That much!? I’ll believe it when I see it, and since when is Halfworld even plugged into the galactic unit system? These are the boonies! And Halfworld isn’t even a thing that’s a thing at this point! And did I mention the forcefield cutting this system off from the rest of the universe?”

“I am Groot!”

“Oh, they’ll pay you in tech and parts will they? I’m sure you being a gigantic dumbass _plant_ didn’t figure into their logic circuits when deciding how much they’ll be able to short-change you!”

“I am Groot!”

“They paid you in advance? Now we’ll never get them to pay you right!”

“I am Groot!”

“Since when is Star-Prince an expert on anything?”

“I am Groot!”

“Oh don’t be like that, you know that’s not even barely enough to faze him, right Quill?”

“No.”

“See? I told y-wait, what?” Rocket snapped out of his tirade and looked at Quill. “Don’t tell me _you’ve_ gone soft!”

“I am Groot!”

“What he said,” Quill said dryly from where he stood right next to the tree man.

“Oh I do so know the difference between laughing at and laughing with!”

“I am Groot!”

“I don’t think it’s worth burning your chlorophyll supply on trying to get him to understand even that much,” Quill told Groot, tapping him on the arm commiseratingly. “He was only born yesterday.”

“Of fuck you, Quill! And you, you overgrown plantchild! How long have you been on-planet?”

“I am Groot!”

“And you couldn’t be bothered to drop by even once?”

“I am Groot!”

“’You were waiting for me to exist?’ How’s that-?“ Rocket finally paused as the answer caught up to him. “Oh. Right.”

“I am Groot!” Groot told Quill sadly.

“As I said, only born yesterday,” Star-Lord soothed the big guy and fuck you too, Quill. “He’ll get better.”

Rocket threw his gun at his head. Which he’d never have done at any other point so he’d just proved Quill’s point, the smug bastard. Who wasn’t even doing him the courtesy of looking half as smug as he should be right now, the bastard. Even though Rocket had completely missed without the guy even moving an inch.

The bastard.

“I am Groot!”

WHAT? Was Groot suddenly a mind-reader now too?

“I was thinking right now,” Quill answered. “We’ve done everything we came for. Although…” Quill looked from Groot to him thoughtfully. “We can give it a couple more hours so a certain someone can look over your payment, seeing as I clearly don’t know shit about barter these days.”

“Oh funny you!”

“I am Groot!”

“Don’t you start with me!”

“I am Groot!”

“Hah! He’ll feel that burn for a week!” Quill crowed.

“Oh looky here, we have a comedian!” That was when the credit chit finally dropped. “And since when can you understand anything he says?”

“Since I can read minds. Now come on, time to be off!”

“Since you-you can WHAT? Hey! Quill! Don’t you walk away from me!”

That was, of course, the wrong thing to say because Peter Quill walked away from him with all due smugness thereby. A smugness that persisted throughout their flight off-planet and grew even greater when he waved his hand in a circle and opened one of them wizard portals as a way to bypass the Galcian Wall because of course he could do that.

Rocket Raccoon was going to shoot someone’s face off before the cycle was out, he was sure of it.

And he did. He just didn’t expect it to be Taserface. But then, he might have doubted any of this was real if Peter Quill wasn’t neck-deep in Ravagers who wanted to kill him.


	7. Complex Cosmonautics

# Chapter 7: Complex Cosmonautics

“-. 7 March, 1989 .-“

The Ravager attack wasn’t the first exciting thing that happened that cycle. In fact, it was the last. Or next to last, if you counted the first minute or so of the hullabaloo that immediately followed being tossed through a space-time portal by his Imperial Condescension. Or, as was an infinitely more apt term in Rocket’s opinion, the _Royal Asshole_.

No, the first exciting thing that happened – for a given value of exciting – was walking in on the guy being all lovey-dovey with Quill’s mom in the living bay. The attack of the ewws Rocket experienced was only outdone by the speed with which he jumped between them and shoved his freshly assembled laser cannon in the guy’s face. The outraged, disgusted, nearly frenzied diatribe he then had over comms with Star-Lord himself was the second exciting thing that occurred. For an even lesser value of exciting. It concluded with Quill the Elder _and_ the woman laughing at him. As if it was HIS fault she’d led with ‘I’m Peter’s mother’ and never clarified that she was referring to herself that way on account of all the past lives where that was true. How the hell was he supposed to know she was actually his grandmother in this timeline? She even _looked_ young enough to be the Royal Asshole’s daughter!

The amused looks he received on and off from all three of them over the next few hours – seriously, they could shove them!

“I am Groot!”

“Honest mistake my ass!”

“I am Groot!”

“Oh, you’re referring to me now?”

“I am Groot!”

“Say that again and I’m grafting you with shit-shrooms all over.”

“I am Groot!”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Groot proceeded to ignore him in favour of kneading his branches and vines through the jump drive. Even though he trusted Quill well enough, Rocket was never fully at ease on a spaceship until he got independent confirmation that there wasn’t any impending malfunction of doom to be concerned about. And by independent confirmation, he of course meant confirmation by the creature with the best grasp of quasi-dimensional super-positional engineering within a thousand lightyears.

He hadn’t joined up with Groot just because he needed a backup brute. Unfortunately, it was for the same reason that he could never afford to follow through on his body horror threats.

Truly, the universe was an unfair place.

It was after Groot’s field-test was complete – which coincided with the trip to whatever destination Quill had chosen in the middle of nospace – that Rocket was given enough reason to emerge from engineering. Which was to say, he was left without a ready excuse against going to the cockpit where he’d have to share breathing space with the Royal Asshole.

“Destination inbound. ETA 5 minutes,” Quill Elder said over the intercom.

Rocket couldn’t wait until it was just the Guardians of the Galaxy on the ship again. Hopefully soon.

It was gonna happen, right?

When he and Groot reached the cockpit slash bridge of the still unnamed M-ship, it was to find Quill Elder at the helm while Quill was seemingly asleep in the copilot’s seat. ‘Seemingly’ because his colours looked a lot drabber than they usually did, even when he was really sleeping. “What’s up with him?”

“Astral projection,” Jason Quill said lowly, adjusting the ship’s course randomly. Or that’s what it looked like. “He’ll be back soon.”

Right. Because that was another thing Quill could do now. Apparently.

Rocket decided to remember how Star-Lord looked like in this state for future reference, but didn’t push that particular matter. “I see we’ve gone from the middle of nowhere to, oh look, the other middle of nowhere! Think you might find it in your poor, elitist heart to share the present itinerary with us plebes, your highnessness?”

“We are following the trail of the Phoenix Force,” Quill Elder said, no return mockery of any sort in his words. He was entirely focused on the minute course adjustments he was doing for whatever reason. “Or, rather, certain after-effects of its passing.”

At least he was being professional, but what the hell? “The Phoenix? What’ve ya been sniffing, wanting to tangle with that thing?”

Jason Quill ignored him. It made Rocket bristle, but he forced himself not to lash out for Quill’s sake if nothing else. Quill Elder at least had a pattern in his non-responses. Usually, silence meant he thought the question had already been answered. Rocket Racoon fingered his pistol but walked over to look Peter over instead. “What after-effects and why do we care?”

“Cosmic rays similar to the ones that gave sapience to the robots on your home planet,” a twitch of the control stick. “And you should care because my son is too ambitious for his own good.”

Ambitious? Quill? Then again, you don’t appoint yourself the protector of the universe without having a serious dose of it, especially when you don’t have any superpowers. “Wait, you’re telling me the robots back home got all self-aware because of that damn bird?”

“Supernovas do not grant sapience on their own.”

Rocket bit his tongue before he said something particularly snide.

“I am Groot!”

“Yes, that is also a concern. But the Shi’Ar have gotten quite efficient in tracking the Phoenix even outside their controlled space. Their patrols and researchers would long have passed this way, I expect. It would have happened a year ago at the latest. There is minimal risk from that corner.”

The Royal Asshole could understand Groot now too? What, was everyone telepathic all of a sudden?

Rocket decided not to ask.

Things were quiet for a while after that. Enough for Groot to settle behind Quill’s chair and for Meredith Quill the older to show up as well. The woman went to put a hand on her husband’s shoulder and, when she got her answering smile, she went and fixed Peter’s hair, then retreated to a chair of her own nearer the back.

It was all disgustingly domestic. Rocket didn’t like it. It felt way too out of place.

Suddenly, a ghost-like veil overlapped the deck – and possibly the whole ship – before it contracted into Star-Lord’s body. Rocket jumped back with a snarl and had his gun half-way out of its holster when Quill’s colours lit back to their bright, healthy intensity. He forced himself to calm down and approach cautiously, Jason Quill’s intrigued gaze burning a hole in the back of his head. “Quill? Yo Star-Lord, you there?”

“I am,” Quill said, blinking awake and scowling at his old man. “And I am not _too_ ambitious for my own good.”

“Say that again once that Spider starts demanding things from you,” Jason Quill replied while Rocket backed off. “Bad enough you had to make promises before you even came into your own, now you keep ‘collaborating’ with him. It’ll end in tears, mark my words.”

“I know what I’m doing.” Peter scoffed, flipping a switch. The projector film slid down over the front-most window.

“So does he, and he’s vastly more intelligent and informed than you.”

“He’s also a good guy.”

“Who operates on a scale vastly greater than yours, boy.”

Peter scowled at his father, which Rocket was glad to see. If Quill had become someone who let _anyone_ walk all over him, the Guardians of the Galaxy would die in the cradle.

“What I think your father is saying, Peter, is that this Weaver entity probably isn’t asking for anything only because he’s already getting it,” Meredith Quill interjected.

“Brainstorming for me and delegation for him,” Peter shrugged, turning some dials and tapping some buttons. “We’re helping each other.”

“He’s _cultivating_ you,” Jason Quill said sharply. “Good or bad, he’s cultivating you for something. But oh, what’s even the use? Racoon!” Rocket jumped. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

“Oh no, I don’t think so,” Rocket scoffed. “First off, I have no idea what you guys are talking about.” Even if he could guess damn well. “Dirty laundry’ had a very distinctive smell. “And second, if you think I’ll take your side over Star-Lord’s in _anything_ , you’re tripping balls.”

“Ha!” Quill Elder barked, inordinately amused at something Rocket said. Grimly so. “That’s me told.”

“Now that that’s settled,” Rocket said with deliberate casualness, turning to Peter. “What _are_ we here for?”

“This.” With a final dial turn, the grainy image on the projector film resolved into a scintillating display of multicolored light overlapping the otherwise empty space the cockpit window was facing.

Rocket stared at the swirling mass of cosmic radiation. “We’re not gonna fly into that, are we? I like my fur where it is, thanks.”

“No.” Peter stood from his seat and walked to one of the rear-most ones. “Unfortunately, it’s dissipating fast so I can’t stick around and explain anything. Dad, feel free to share. Just don’t insult my friends too much.” That said, he switched the chair to low-backed sleep mode and plopped down on it, closing his eyes.

“Wait what?” Rocket said, tearing his eyes away from the oddly hypnotising lights on-screen. “Hey, what’re you doing? Don’t tell me you’re taking a nap! You just had one! And what do you mean ‘too much!’”

But Peter didn’t reply. He just clocked out, faded back into that drab state and flooded out of his body like a tide of weird overlapping-ness that quickly left through the bulkhead as if it wasn’t there.

“Jackass,” Rocket muttered, staring after the rapidly disappearing whathever-it-was. It had to be shooting past entire light-years in moments! Which was weird that he saw it at all because it wasn’t anything he was familiar with. He was also pretty sure light didn’t work that way.

“So you _do_ have some extrasensory perception,” Jason Quill remarked. “I suppose you had to have something going for you, for my son to be so invested.”

“Yeah, no, I’m not falling for that obvious jab,” Rocket huffed, hopping onto the co-pilot seat Quill had just vacated. No way was he letting the Royal Asshole have unchallenged control over their ship.

“I am Groot!”

“Is that why?” Jason Quill asked his buddy and no, Groot, stop guessing your buddy’s thoughts aloud! “But I’ve basically been flying the ship uncontested since we left the Loony Bin. Should I be worried of delayed reactions, if he’s only getting insecure about it now?”

“I am Groot!”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Oh that’s it. Come on, then. You wanna go!? You and me down in living, right now!”

“And that’s my cue,” Meredith Quill said smartly, rising from her seat and going to gently tug on Groot’s shoulder boughs. “How’s about us sane people go rustle up some lunch before we see a baby rodent try to punch out a centenarian and vice-versa.”

“I am Groot!”

“You damn traitor!” Rocket hollered after his departing ‘friend.’

Peter grunted and turned in his chaise at the noise. An arm slipped to hang awkwardly off the side.

Jason Quill tossed Rocket a glare and went over to his son, tucking him back into the chaise properly. Then he paused, took off that half-cape he always wore and laid it over him like a blanket. He then sat on the edge of the chair and brushed the back of his fingers over his son’s face. Rocket looked away from the sight. From that expression he put on. He felt oddly like he was intruding.

He didn’t like it.

He also wondered how the hell Quill went from astral projection to sleeping. Could he do both now? Or were they always the same thing? Or maybe Quill was just his normal contrary self and was doing both at once even when he shouldn’t, just to be a pain in Rocket’s furry ass. Yeah, that was probably it.

“My people have a custom,” Jason Quill abruptly spoke, not looking away from his son but clearly addressing Rocket. “Xenia. Guest-friendship. The sacred rule of hospitium, of which common hospitality is but a pale flickering shade. It began in the ancient times as a way to avoid accidentally offending the gods, who were known to mingle with mortals and snare us in tricks and games as was their wont. But the custom nonetheless survives to this day in Spartoi life. Indeed, it is one of the few things we decided to keep after the Great Repudiation, of what the gods embedded into our society.” Well this was out of nowhere, and Great Repudiation of what? “There are various rituals and customs involved, but the core is this: respect from hosts to guests, and respect from guests to hosts. The host must be hospitable to guests and provide them with a bath, clothing, food, drink, gifts, and safe escort to their next destination. It is considered rude to ask guests questions, or even to ask who they are, before they have finished the meal provided to them.” Jason Quill stood and walked over to stand before Rocket himself. “Conversely, guests must be courteous to their hosts and not be a threat or burden. They are expected to provide stories and news from the places whence they came. Most importantly, guests are expected to reciprocate if their hosts ever call upon them in their homes.”

“That’s nice,” Rocket said, pretending that the way the man stood over him wasn’t intimidating. “But what does that have to do with me?” He was starting to get an idea and he didn’t like it.

“Your weapons. Your tools. Your clothing. It was not my son but myself that provided them. Just like the food you ate in the galley. Lodging on this ship. _My_ ship.” Correction: Rocket had _not_ gotten an idea. It had been at best 12% of an idea. Also, he suddenly felt completely naked. “Peter tried to assure me that you could be trusted to behave even without such ‘formalities’.” Behave? What did he think he was, a pet!? “I, however, assumed you would take offense at such a thing.” _Like you just have_ hung thickly in the air. “Now let me be clear: I don’t know you. I don’t know much _of_ you except third-hand. And what few personal encounters we’ve had in past – undone or not – have not left me positively predisposed towards you.”

Rocket growled, fur standing up. “And I don’t like snobs, I don’t trust deposed royals turned crime lords, and I have a pathological inability to assume anything but the worst about unequal opportunity assholes.”

“A feeling which I fully reciprocate.”

How the hell did that not give him even a little pause and WHAT!? “Oh I am _so_ not an unequal opportunity asshole! I’m all about equal opportunities for everyone!”

“Then you should be all in favour of establishing the accord I just described,” Jason Quill said calmly, holding a hand to the side and sketching a circle in the air with his fingertip. A portal sparked its way open in the air, allowing a cup of steaming – sniff – hot cinnamon wine to fall in his hand. “After all…” The man held out the cup towards Rocket. “It would be such a _shame_ if we had to worry about insulting, sabotaging and killing each other in our sleep for however many _months_ we will travel together.”

Sabotage? Murder? Months!?

Rocket Racoon glared up at the man, indignant. “… You’re an asshole.” Because what else could he say? “Just to be clear, even if I did succumb to the sudden onset of insanity that’s making me consider this, does this apply just to me or whoever else I bring in?”

“Xenia is offered and accepted or spurned individually. If Groot is your concern, however, you may let it rest. He was offered and accepted my hospitality with all it implies the moment he first came on board months ago.”

And he didn’t give Rocket any forewarning, the treacherous bastard. Really, between Groot, Quill and now this guy, Rocket was literally surrounded by them.

Rocket hesitated, but ultimately reached out to take the cup, because what the hell else could he do? “Don’t think this makes us friends,” he sneered, sniffing at the wine for anything that shouldn’t be there. Which he couldn’t be sure of, because odourless drugs and poisons were always the rage. But he’ll be a loose end in nospace before he just accepts anything at face value. Especially stuff handed to him by a former crime lord.

Still, Rocket Racoon drunk the irritatingly exquisite drink with as much dignity as his snout allowed, then waited for the potential mindstorm. His paw was just over his pistol holster the whole time.

But nothing happened.

“Are you satisfied,” Jason Quill asked at length, holding out his hand for the cup when nothing bad happened for five minutes.

Rocket scowled and sipped the rest of the wine very slowly, so that at least the amount of assholery in the air stayed consistent. _Then_ he handed it back. “… Alright, yeah. Here you go.”

“Just so we’re clear, because I have no doubt you will research the relevant customs thoroughly now that you are subject to them,” Quill Elder said as he portaled the cup away. “The rules of Xenia are to be obeyed in spirit, not the letter. And it is not just your honour at stake now, but that of everyone who vouched for you. I hope we understand each other.”

“Yeah yeah, play nice or I’ll make Groot and Quill look bad. I get it, geez!”

“Good, then we can finally have a frank conversation now that we’ve reached an accord. One Peter can’t listen in, on account of me having weaved a sound-blocking veil around him before we even started this conversation.”

Rocket almost pulled his gun on him despite the obligations he’d just sworn to, but what was he expecting really? Of course there were ulterior motives!

Jason Quill turned the pilot’s seat around and sat down facing Rocket, face serious. “You may have noticed my son and I disagree on certain matters.”

“Hard not to,” Rocket snarked as a way to conceal his indecision over whether to take offense on Quill’s behalf or not. For this and the preceding bit.

“Notwithstanding things I was told in confidence,” because he suddenly had honour now. Ha. “I believe we share certain misgivings with my son’s priorities as they currently stand-”

“If ya think I’ll-“

“ _Common courtesy_ ,” Jason Quill ground out, “Such as not interrupting your host while he is speaking does fall under the rules of hospitality, in case it wasn’t clear.”

Rocket grit his teeth, breathed slowly through his nose and motioned to the man to continue. It was the full extent of apology he was willing to extend given their history.

Quill Elder didn’t seem to expect more from him either. It rankled. “My son is proving vastly more cavalier than I like when dealing with cosmic beings. How much has he shared with you of things?”

“… Timelines are all the past and he’s a god with connections now, whatever that means besides being able to return people’s memories.”

“That is the issue – restoring pan-temporal memories is _not_ in his own power.” The pilot console chirped with an alert or other but the man ignored it. With good reason because what did Rocket just hear? “While I have no doubt he could eventually achieve something on the vein of what he did to you, it is an ability he has not even _begun_ to cultivate.” The console chirped again but it was ignored again.

So Rocket ignored it too. The stuff being discussed… actually seemed pretty big to him too, now. “Shit. What’s Quill gotten himself into _this_ time?”

“It is not what he is doing _now_ so much as the scope of what he will be _asked_ to do in return for this help from ‘as unambiguous a good guy as you’re likely to enlightenment-fail your way into finding.’” He air quoted.

Rocket scratched at his head in agitation. “Look, just get to the point.”

“No son wants to disappoint his father, especially as worthy a one as I.” Jason Quill said those words calmly. Levelly. As if he felt no need to revel in such a great boast at all. “But I am also the only person to date that has warned him of future consequences he might not be able to handle. This means that when those consequences _do_ catch up with him, he will likely be too ashamed to rely on me for the emotional support he will desperately need. As I do not see him going to either of his mothers for various reasons, his only option left will be you.”

Rocket was torn between feeling vindicated for his entire existence, appalled at the mind-twister of having more than two mothers to begin with, and spitting at the man his most mean-spirited ‘duh’ of all his lives. “Well gee, your highnessness. Tell me how you really feel. It’s almost like you don’t have any faith in the power of our friendship.”

“I do not.”

Rocket gaped at the man, outraged. The console alarm chirped rather more insistently but it went even more ignored than before.

“There is a theme I’ve noticed in your recurring history,” J’Son of Spartax said lowly, almost pinning Rocket to his chair with the strength of his gaze. “Peter comes into his own, the Guardians of the Galaxy are formed, you have many adventures, and then something happens that pulls Peter into so many directions that his morale finally suffers and he becomes afflicted with decision paralysis just in time for you to _abandon him_.”

Rocket almost lost himself to the urge to grab his gun and shoot the man in the face. “You have some nerve.” Almost. “You! The winner of every shitty parent award in the universe. When I was _always_ the one who carried on in his place!”

“When he was as good as _dead_ , but devils forbid you show the same consistency when he is alive and well.”

“Ya don’t know shit about-!“

The console beeped this time. Loudly.

Jason Quill flicked it silent without looking, choosing to glare harshly at Rocket instead. “The Kree. The Phalanx. The Annihilation. His short-lived reign as King when he was so obviously set up to fail _._ You even walked away on him while grounded on Earth during the second superhuman war. Instead of, oh, trusting his judgment that maybe some _operational security_ was necessary given that Gamora wasn’t entirely trustworthy. Which she wasn’t, as prior history indicated and later events made blatantly clear. And then, when my son was so burned out that he didn’t have it in him anymore to care about anything – because of everything aforementioned that _you_ were never there to support him through – your wooden friend takes your spot as prime mutineer. All to go save the very woman who fucked everything up for all of you during the Infinity Wars. And this is just from that one timeline where things were damn near idyllic compared to the disaster that every other timeline turned into. All of which I’ve long since used my own leverage with _certain_ _parties_ to witness entirely first-hand. Don’t you _dare_ tell me what I do or do not know, boy.”

The silence that followed was heavy. Implacable. Damning.

A shiver of alarm belatedly crawled down Rocket’s spine even through the mess of contempt, shame, guilt and remorseful irritation. Somehow, it hadn’t struck him until that point that he might not be the only one who needed divine hospitality rituals to keep from resorting to bloodshed.

It stuck in his craw to admit it, but he didn’t like his chances.

“My son has always chosen you over me,” Jason Quill said with that same matter-of-fact tone as earlier. “So when the time comes and the mood once more strikes you to _abandon him,_ do us all a favour and _don’t_.”

The tension hung thick between them. Grim. Heavy with well contained anger and barely suppressed violence. A hundred accusations and snide barbs and vitriolic diatribes roared behind Rocket’s eyes, desperate to claw their way past his throat and spit themselves at the presumptious, treacherous, on-and-off power-mad hypocrite.

But that was the thing, wasn’t it? Jason Quill had been all those things. He’d never been anyone the Guardians other than Peter bothered holding to any sort of standard. Because you couldn’t exactly expect better of someone who was so bad so many ways. But the Guardians were supposed to be better. Rocket was supposed to be better. And for all that he was directly involved and personally invested in all those events, it wasn’t like you needed to see things from outside to get where the man was coming from. As much as Rocket hated it, the theme was there. Ugly. Baleful. _Recurring_.

The only thing Peter had done that ever skirted the edges of unforgiveable – even at his very worst – was when he had Mantis telepathically nudge a bunch of them to join his team. On account of there not being time for team-building between once mortal enemies while the universe was literally ending. And that was the other big thing, wasn’t it? Extenuating circumstances weren’t worth jack shit if everyone had them, but the reverse was also true. Especially since everyone involved later returned and all but admitted to the validity of Peter’s extenuating circumstances over their own by joining up again.

The proximity alarm suddenly blarted.

Rocket Racoon couldn’t help but feel offended by this intrusion from the outside universe. Even though he was pathetically grateful he didn’t have to break the tension himself.

Jason Quill, though, pinched his nosebridge and sat back in the pilot seat with a growl.

The proximity sensors blarted even more insistently. Repeatedly.

“Er…” Rocket ventured. “Think ya might wanna finally check on that?”

“No need,” the man grunted irately, glaring at the sticks and knobs. “I can guess well enough and I’ll not divert my attention until I have your word.”

“Man, fuck your priorities seriously,” Rocket huffed, checking the readings on his own console just as he saw something out the window screen. He froze. “Oh shit.”

Ravagers.

A dozen right on top of them.

Weapons already _powering up_.

… The earlier alerts they’d ignored had been hails _oh fuck_.

“Brace for evasive action!” Rocket screamed over comms as he scrambled for control through the co-pilot console. The adrenaline shot was so big and sudden that he felt downright woozy. “We’re under attack! Ravager ships, twelve of ‘em spread out 9 to 4 o’clock! Groot, fire up the main gun! Missus Quill, ya better hunker down!” He shut off the intercom to glare at the man. “And you! Don’t just sit there!”

“Infringing on the host’s responsibility for safe harbor is a terrible breach of xenia.”

“Oh fuck you _so much_!” Rocket screamed as the pirates started shooting plasma blasts all over the place. “And fuck you, and fuck you, and fuck you too!” Rocket hollered while he mixed evasive maneuvers with gattling blasters. The ship almost seemed to move on its own as he anticipated every last firing path and avoided incoming bolts of plasma. To his surprise, the automated turrets actually clipped their attackers. “Who are they? Why are they here? How did they find us!?”

“Yondu’s erstwhile second, avenging the lowlife’s death as a way to cement leadership, and they’ve had feelers all over the Orion arm’s jump points for months looking for this ship but I’m still waiting for your word.”

“Are you-THIS IS NOT THE TIME!” Rocket yelped. Miraculously, the ship’s shields somehow didn’t suffer the three different glancing hits he swore should have struck true during his distraction.

“I beg to differ,” red trails left afterimages as they burned barely short of the main screen. “I am an interested party, you have something I want, and this is a high-pressure situation.”

“You fucking asshole!” Rocket shrieked, cork-screwing around a shot that made him distantly wonder about the brain capacity of whoever was on the other end of that firing line. “I ain’t gonna be browbeat into anything and are you crazy?! Your wife and kid are both on board!”

“As they will be with me long after the trash outside is taken out.”

“You crazy son of a-“ Rocket side-flew two laser bolts and then dove below an ion cannon blast. “How are you so calm about this!?”

“Because the scum outside somehow survived this far without knowing the first rule of space combat.”

“And what rule is that!?”

“If a space battle isn’t long and boring,” the man idly swept a finger downward over the sight of the ships just outside. “You’re doing something wrong.”

The ship farthest off suddenly veered drunkenly, turned sideways and shot the first one’s engines into smithereens.

Rocket gaped. The shock was enough to break his concentration and he couldn’t react fast enough to what ships hadn’t gotten around to reacting to the apparent treachery. One of which shot them dead-center.

Or would have, if the pilot and co-pilot console hadn’t gained a life of their own and begun to flick, press and turn their various switches, buttons and sticks independently. The ship promptly proceeded to fly through the rain of fire without his input.

Rocket Raccoon boggled at the cockpit controls that were now steering the ship by themselves. Then he snapped his head around to stare at J’Son of Spartax who was sat idly back on his pilot’s seat as if on a throne. Outside, the second, third and seventh Ravager ships turned coat within seconds of each other as well, sparking a full-blown free-for all.

Belatedly, the first rapports of their own ship’s main gun finally shot into the void.

Rocket suddenly felt an onset of not-at-all-hidden, totally-not-hysteria.

“Dad, stop scaring my friends.”

Rocket jerked in place, snapping to look in Quill’s direction the same time Quill Elder did. But the guy was still asleep like before. He hadn’t even slipped out of position despite the strain put on the inertial dampeners by the evasive actions that had just been pulled.

“That brat,” Jason Quill groused fondly. “Even without the foresight he’d have needed to account for the barking dogs outside, he still anticipated both of us well enough to time that pre-recorded message perfectly.”

So Quill’s body doubled as messaging machine now, Rocket thought breathlessly.

Not to be distracted, Jason Quill resumed his regard of Rocket immediately.

… Technopathy. It had to be. And they were all on his spaceship. Fuck his life. “… Let me take this chance to officially state that I’m in full approval of your decision to stop being evil.”

“Your _word_ , Raccoon.”

Never mind how badly it stung that the Royal Asshole thought he needed to have loyalty _coerced_ into him. “Fine fine, you have my word I won’t abandon or turn on Star-Lord again without being abducted, mindfucked or otherwise compromised somehow!” Why was he scowling at him like that? “What? You expect me not to cover my bases? Everything I said happened before and I bet it’ll happen again!”

“Indeed,” the man said with a bizarrely predatory disdain. “Then it’s settled: I’ll personally train you to resist such subversion.”

“Well isn’t that just ni-wait what?”

But the man moved on quickly now that he’d gotten what he wanted. He spun his seat away from the outside view entirely, rose from it and walked to the center of the cockpit and turned back around, taking from his belt and putting on a two-finger ring that itched at Rocket’s familiarity.

“Hey, don’t ignore m-“

The man jabbed at the air, spun his hand, and that familiarity burst into recognition on account of the sudden _portal into the air-sucking vacuum of space holy shit_ -! But the sparks disappeared immediately, thank oblivion. Then the man did it again. And again. Sparks, portal and a sudden yank from the vacuum of space. Rocket had to hold onto his seat lest he be sucked away.

Jason Quill tsked. “As usual when lacking anything resembling a planetary jaunt grid, the aim on these things is complete shit. Still, I think I’ve just… about…” This time when the first sparks cut a new asshole in space-time, there wasn’t any void to suck them in from the other end. “Got it!”

A portal finally grew all the way, revealing the sight of the bridge of a ship. A Ravager ship. With Taserface right in the middle.

The red-skinned alien gaped at them, made for his gun and fell over dead on account of his face getting blown off.

Jason Quill blinked at the rapid conclusion to the situation, ignored the many other pirates frozen stiff on the enemy bridge, and looked at Rocket Raccoon and the smoking laser cannon in his hands.

“What?” Rocket snarled feverishly. “Never seen a coping mechanism before!? Well, this is mine!”

“… You’re going to overstep the rules of hospitality at every turn, aren’t you?”

“Oh I’m so sorry I don’t know your cultural preferences. You see I’m so overwhelmed with other concerns, like I just can’t stop thinking about the creep waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror and in all seriousness to himself saying ‘You know what would be a really kick-ass name? Taserface!’ That's how I hear him in my head, what was his second choice, Scrotumhat!?”

Which was when a second portal opened under Peter Quill and ate him up along with his chair.

Rocket Racoon stared at the now empty spot, aghast.

Jason Quill sighed long-sufferingly, rubbing a palm over his face. “It seems I’ll be testing the worth of your word sooner than any of us might like, Raccoon.”

“Eh?”

Which was when the man opened another portal at the same time that the co-pilot’s chair lurched violently and tossed him right through it.

“AAAGH!” Rocket screamed as he flew forward and then fell sideways into a pile of smoking slag in the middle of Knowhere. “Unh! Hngh! Agh!” he cried as he tumbled down. “Ha-ah-ack-ah-aaargh that’s it! THAT’S IT!” The harried space mammal jumped to his feet, barely averted falling back on his face due to the loose debris that caught under his foot, then he started shooting up the first bunch of uglies he could find. “That’s!” Bang! “Fucking!” Blast! “It!” Slag. Slag. Slag! “I don’t care anymore! The next person who gets in my face is never again going to HAVE a face, do you hear me assholes! Take it with you to the bank, I am no one’s performance act!” Rocket’s eyes teared up from the sharp mix of pungent smells that assaulted him, oils and fuels and who know what other things but fuck that shit, he was coping! He was still coping.

He was coping just fine dammit!

“Rocket?” Quill’s voice cut through his berserker rage.

Barely.

“What!?” Rocket whirled around.

The only reason he didn’t drop his laser cannon entirely was because it was strapped on.

Gunfire. Rioters all over. Flames. Smoke. Hovercars rushing away in haste to reach the outskirts. Ship fire blasting every which way everywhere around. And in the middle of it all stood Star-Lord, hands glowing white as he projected a massive forcefield beyond which loomed The Collector’s Museum-Ship. It was in the last stages of wrenching free of Knowhere’s structure, screeching and groaning with the noise of tearing metal and stiff hinges built ages ago. And it was leeching fluids and blowing smoke from holes and pockmarks that had very recently been blasted in and out of it all over.

The massive crack in its side from which the last trickle of escaped specimens had just jumped was a pretty big clue too, that things in Knowhere had gone rather topsy turvy since… since…

“Not even an hour since your soul fucked off and THIS is what you have to show for it!?” Rocket felt just about ready to explode in outrage. “Your old man’s right, you’re fucking nuts! And stupid! ‘I went and fucked an A'askvariian’ stupid! Times squared! To the power of infinity!”

Whatever Peter would have replied was put on hold on account of his forcefield being struck head-on by a massive beam of molten metal accelerated to a fraction of the speed of light. Rocket blinked. A magnetohydronynamic cannon? What was this, take your ancient technology with you to work day?

Peter grunted. “Just a moment.” Somehow managing to maintain the rapidly shimmering forcefield with a single hand, he pointed the other at the farthest side of the ship in his line of sight. Then he wriggled his hand in a now too familiar motion.

A circle of sparks bloomed into a massive portal with the low orbit of some planet or other on the other side.

“Star-Lord you jackaaaaaas!” Rocket howled as he was yanked off the ground along with everything else within half a mile because depressurisation was very much definitely a thing this time.

That was when Star-Lord waved his hand sideways and the portal swept over the Collector Museum-Ship like the universe’s biggest mobile door made of razor-sharp fire filaments before shutting down.

Rocket Raccoon crashed to the ground and slid ungainly across scuffed, pockmarked backtop until he bumped into Peter Quill’s feet from behind. His head was spinning, his heart was pounding, his lungs couldn’t seem to get enough air, and his soul was seized with the most holy urge to bash Star-Lord’s head in.

All such thoughts, alas, suffered an early demise when Quill looked down at him while glowing with white light. “Sorry Rocket, but I’ll need a raincheck on any righteous retribution you might want.”

Star-Lord walked off, mood grim and silent, and abruptly blasted off into the air in a streak of red, gold and pressure waves.

Rocket stared after him. That… This…

He picked himself off the ground, still staring after the man as he flew up and away and away until he just… stopped in place right in the _actual_ middle of Knowhere.

Then, in a way felt like it would reach eerily all the way to the edge of the dead head, the crazy whatever-he-was began whistling.

And a streak of red and white light shot out from him and began violently _pacifying_ every other spaceship in sight that was still blasting at things.

Rocket Raccoon stared silently at… whatever this was. Despite his best efforts, his mind kept falling short of just what Quill was or wasn’t doing. He didn’t know what to feel either.

He was only distracted from the arrow and its trail of destruction by the sound of wooshing and clanks intruding on the otherwise unchallenged music.

Rocket turned to the place where the museum once hovered, now a giant hole in the Celestial skull’s… well, skull. Quill had clearly substituted accuracy for haste, if the piece of scenery he sent away alongside Tivan’s ship was _that_ enormous. Above it, though, now hovered a miss-matched but surprisingly even path of floating slabs, rocks and sheets of whatever or other.

Rocket Raccon put his laser cannon back on his back, took out his laser pistol and proceeded to carefully climb up the obviously beckoning path.

Roll with the punches. Roll with the punches. He was good at that.

The rampage of whistling destruction continued behind him as he walked over the gap, explosions growing rarer but not stopping entirely. Even when he reached the other side and stepped inside the late Boot of Jemiah, the only part of the Exitar mining colony that didn’t seem to have smoke pouring out of it.

When he entered, what he found was nothing like Rocket expected.

Or, rather, who. “… Cosmo!?”

<I hope you will forgive me the substandard welcome> Cosmo the Space Dog sent telepathically from where he stood front and center among everyone and their grandmother that had escaped from the Collector’s museum over the past hour. Which seemed to be… a hurctarian, some weird tall thing, a xeronian, that one-eyed alien he always wanted to see the insides of, a frost giant of all things, that giant blue butterfly, even Howard the Duck. Basically most everyone Rocket recalled seeing there in the last timeline. And then some.

He cautiously holstered his weapons and peered at the only other miss-evolved mammal he cared enough to know. “… Are _you_ why I’ve been fighting over a chunk of irradiated nothing on the other end of space?” That wasn’t strictly what happened but it was going to be his version of things until further notice. Cosmo had turned from normal dog to super-intelligent psionic dog because of cosmic ray bombardment, right? Way back however many timelines.

And now, apparently, this one. Belated as it was.

<Indeed.> Cosmo relayed. <Whatever else Star-Lord may have been during the last _time_ we were all here, the present state of Knowhere as the greatest hive of scum and villainy in the galaxy seems to have offended him on a personal level. It is little wonder why he would take steps to reinstate this station’s prior purpose and its security chief.>

Except now it was more like a moon dotted with a bunch of colonies, mines, special interests, and every last type of scum in known and unknown space.

“I think I’m starting to see why Star-Lord came here,” Rocket said. Though not why Quill elder had tossed _him_ over through whatever way he had of perfectly aiming for his son across time and space. Star-Lord obviously didn’t need him.

…Or did he?

That was when way too bright light started to seep in from outside.

Rocket ran out of the Boot of Jemiah with gun in hand, just in time to see the whole of Knowhere being… overlapped by the weirdest bubble of inverted not-world he’d ever seen.

Then a mighty voice boomed everywhere, deep and unrecognisable. “ATTENTION PARASITES. YOU HAVE UNTIL THE SEVENTH TURN OF THE CYCLE TO **GET OUT OF MY HEAD**!”

Because why wouldn’t the madman make it sound as if the Celestial was resurrecting instead of just claiming the remains by right of inheritance or something, Rocket thought dumbly.

Star-Lord did need him, Rocket thought faintly. He needed him to give him a good kick in the head when he was getting too big for his breeches. Which, apparently, he was on the very border of. Right this moment. And a certain Royal Asshole hadn’t even needed to be here and see all this to know.

“Old Man Quill…” Rocket Raccoon muttered lowly as he went to do his part in the hostile takeover of the dead head of a god. “I really hope you aren’t evil.”

“-. 25 March, 1989 .-“

Nobody besides the “forget everything and run” crowd of villains and malcontents actually managed to make it off the station by the deadline. But that was still the vast majority of people. Those that didn’t dismiss it all as a drugged or drunken fancy anyway. Or the ones crazy or stupi enough to try their luck against a god. Those had to be persuaded or removed in more permanent ways, though more often hired by Cosmo or whoever else was suddenly strapped for muscle. Fortunately, the criminals were really the only ones that could pose a risk to the new status quo that Star-Lord had set out to establish, through sheer belligerence if nothing else.

<I believe I have a sufficiently sizable force to establish some sort of order,> Cosmo said half-way through the second week of the whole kerfuffle. <I don’t expect to feel fully at ease until my dimensional envelope is recreated, however.>

Which was a _lot_ harder than they expected because bigshot science didn’t… work as easily as it did in older ‘times.’ Star-Lord had tried to explain it in terms like Substance, Motion, Consciousness and how the last of those had been way too far ahead of the other two back then, before the cosmos corrected for the imbalance. All Rocket got out of it despite his, reasonably speaking, high intelligence was ‘We’ve gone from soft sci-fi to slightly less soft sci-fi.’

Somehow.

Everyone please ignore the literal god stomping on this here balance, no need to ask questions about that. We good now, lowlifes?

Even with their own god involved, though, asserting full control of a moon-sized godhead turned space station slash minefield – heh – was no quick task. There were shootouts, gang wars to stomp on, clan wars to evacuate off the premises, and no small number of lodging, protection and research-related negotiations between everyone else and the ‘exalted representative of the dreaming god’ i.e. Star-Lord. And by ‘everyone else,’ Rocket of course meant the few descendants left of the original, legitimate settlers. As well as non-criminal business groups, special interest groups, galactic powers that had (or sent) representatives to investigate the new upset in the underworld, various corporations. Hell even the Tivan Group sent new reps about a month after the ‘Day of Reclamation’ as the more thespian of the remaining refugees had taken to calling it.

Everyone was certain the Tivan Group delegation had only come back in a bid to worm their way into a position where their boss – the Collector – could reclaim control later. Fortunately, Quill hadn’t come down from his victory high enough to have qualms about refusing them representation. On the basis of ‘relations can’t go much more sour than they are right now’ except that Quill resorted to the much less diplomatic statement of “I don’t deal with slavers and your boss is worse.”

Rocket might have demanded they go out for drinks to celebrate this oh so healthy and firm moral compass, if he weren’t a wee bit worried about Quill maybe moving a bit… well, fast.

And blatantly.

Fortunately, on the third day of the third week, Jason Quill finally deigned to grace Knowhere with his august presence. ‘Fortunately.’ Rocket had actually meant that wholeheartedly. “Seriously, old man, please don’t be evil.”

“Hmm?” Peter asked from next to him, where he was dutifully acting as the welcoming committee as mandated by the Spartoi hospitality ritual. “You said something?”

“Yeah but it ain’t your business.”

Peter laughed. It always eased something in Rocket’s mind to see that he hadn’t developed even a shred of arrogance or paranoia, or whatever other mean-spirited defects Rocket saw too often in the villains they fought. He wasn’t sure if that spoke good or bad of how things would go down, though, the next time Star-Lord decided to follow on his _ambitions_.

Whatever they were. Rocket was almost afraid to ask, and Quill seemed content assuming Rocket had already guessed them all even though he hadn’t. He wasn’t entirely sure what to expect even from today, what with the size of the crowd that had gathered even _without_ any special announcements that something big was going to happen.

Jason Quill stepped off the much bigger and fancier ship that he must have traded all his captures for, wife in tow.

Peter bowed in greeting. Lower than he had for _anyone_. “J’Son of Spartax, welcome. The hospitality of Knowhere is yours, Father.”

“A hospitality I gladly accept, my Son.” The man took and consumed the offered bread and wine as everyone watched.

The penny called ‘high-profile comeback’ very belatedly dropped and Rocket Raccoon almost couldn’t refrain from gaping in his most ungainly manner. He could practically feel the moment the rumor mill, news reels and every intelligence asset within a hundred lightyears started churning.

To the old man’s credit, though, he didn’t seem to have approved or even been in on Peter’s plans to do this for him. Which was fair, Rocket thought with an absurd burst of relief. If there had been more collusion, not only would Jason Quill have proven duplicitous about his stated concerns, but Peter probably _would_ have made it a big, official holiday or something similarly ridiculous.

The Father’s disapproval, when it came, was as subtle as it was obvious. Which is to say, he dismissed the matter of his reception and all its implications entirely. Instead, he waited until they were in private and then brought up something completely unrelated when saying the first words spoken to his son since they’d last seen each other all those weeks before. “Mer called. She has news.”

A varied gamut of emotions played over Quill’s face, too quickly for Rocket to parse them. When he spoke, though, he was noticeably _not_ smug or conceited. Which, okay, there hadn’t been much of even before. The former hadn’t been entirely absent either though. “Did she find Anna Marie?”

“More,” Jason Quill said. “She found Richard.”

And because his month hadn’t already been troublesome enough, the penny that dropped now was even bigger.

Richard. Richard Rider.

“Well,” Star-Lord said. “Looks like we’re going back to Terra.”


	8. Right of Last Refusal

“-. 30 March, 1989 .-“

_“I don’t think this is quite what you expected when you made me ‘pinkie swear’ to call the moment I finished MIT, but I finished MIT. It sucked. Have a nice life, Wonder Boy.”_

Damn right it was nothing like he expected. He hadn’t even begun to passive-aggressively goad his dad into setting up career opportunities. He didn’t think he’d get that call for at least three more years!

_“Kid, ma says you called. It’s sweet and all but I’ve moved out. Please don’t bother her again, will you?”_

Not that his dad was ever home much to goad into anything, but it was the principle of the thing! He’d have thought Richard would have the decency to at least graduate instead of getting himself expelled!

_“Kid, what did I say? Stop bothering ma, she has enough on her plate right now.”_

And what straight-C student even gets themselves kicked out of college for poor grades and ‘belligerent conduct in the lecture hall’ anyway? This was not fresh! The bastard had used a loophole to get out of their bet!

_“Kid… Seeing as the mortgage and five years’ worth of bills have mysteriously vanished, ma nagged me into ‘re-establishing some manner of communication even if she has to carry my end of it herself,’ I will now take ONE question. Make it good.”_

Two years later the dick was _still_ taking months to call back, and then only from public pay-phones in the middle of the night just to make sure the answering machine would take the calls instead of him. He’d even gone and somehow secured compliance from his own butler!

“Jarvis!” His name was Anthony Edward Stark and he was _not_ _happy._ “I seem to recall I asked to be alerted of any and all calls from Richard no matter how late in the night.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Please do explain why this has yet to materialise.”

Edwin Jarvis beheld him calmly. “If that is indeed your command I will of course abide. But given the nature of the issue, I must insist you make it an order before I comply, master Anthony.”

Tony Stark blinked in surprise, actually taken aback enough to stall his irritation. “… Explain.”

“I have had the pleasure of conversing at length with Mister Rider myself and find myself sympathetic to his position.”

Tony felt his irritation crawl over him all over again. “Well how the heck am I even supposed to know his position if he doesn’t talk to me!?”

“Perhaps use that as the subject of the question he has agreed to?”

“While we’re still interacting through his mom?” Tony asked in disbelief. “Are you crazy?”

“I am sure I have no idea, Master Anthony.”

The rest of that talk was uncomfortably reminiscent of the rare ‘conversations’ his old man deigned to let Tony engage him in, whenever he bothered being home at all. Tony didn’t like it. Jarvis was supposed to be a refuge from all that. He did, however, get what he needed out of it to make a decision though. Even if what he needed wasn’t necessarily what he wanted.

So when he next called the implausibly forbearing Gloria Rider, he asked her to ask Richard if he would kindly give Jarvis permission to share whatever it was they had talked about pretty please with hot dogs on top?

A few days later, Jarvis told him that Richard had called and gave his consent on the proviso that Tony never call him or his again.

Tony had to give it to his old school buddy, he sure knew his ultimatums. Because honestly, what the heck had he done that had pissed him off so badly? It couldn’t have been anything in college because jealousy over Tony’s age and genius never seemed to be a thing with him, and anyway they’d still been fine when Tony graduated. It couldn’t have been anything from high-school either. Not even the bet that forced Richard to get the grades he needed to make it to MIT in the first place. It had been a fair deal: Richard bet Tony didn’t really have what it took to hack the Pentagon on pain of never doing drugs again if he succeeded. And Tony had bet him that he’d so dare and the drugs could go fuck themselves very much, please and thank you, if Richard promised to do his best to get into MIT if he pulled it off.

It hadn’t even been mean-spirited – Richard had gotten into the same fancy boarding school Tony attended, hadn’t he? If Tony had been on any less crack at that post-Homecoming party, he might’ve even thought to force the older boy into shooting for a scholarship. Not that it was technically possible after the guy had spent the first three years of high-school before Tony’s admission solidly making C’s across the board. But exams could be re-taken, especially when you had a buddy who was richer than God to grease the wheels.

Richard’s grades had always smelled off anyway. Nobody manages to be a straight-whatever student unless they’re deliberately aiming for it. Especially someone who could mix and match used car parts the way Richard did even on his worst day. The guy had the best intuitive grasp of applied mechanics of anyone Tony had ever seen. Exceptional eye for spotting lucrative deals too, now that he thought about it.

Also gambling. Or at least ruining everybody else’s enjoyment of such. He was terribly sensible like that.

Well too bad for Richard because Tony was not about to be intimidated out of a course of action once he was resolved. Which he was. Especially after his altruistic gift had basically been thrown back in his face like that!

Unfortunately, the discussion with Jarvis went sideways pretty much the moment it started and didn’t recover one iota by the time it was done.

“So let’s see if I got everything…” Tony said flatly, feeling hollow and rung out as he stared out the window at the setting sun. “Richard’s dad and uncle both die in a car accident about a month after I leave college. And the only reason Richard doesn’t drop out immediately instead of getting himself expelled through sheer belligerence – on account of him needing to make money for his mother and brother _now_ instead of waiting to build a career over the next 5 years _–_ is because he doesn’t want to renege on our bet.”

“Yes, Master Tony.”

“By then, his mom manages to get a job as a 911 emergency operator. But even that borderline miracle in the middle of a recession isn’t enough to let them make ends meet. Because the aforementioned recession has already managed to fuck them over like it did pretty much everyone else.”

“Indeed, Master Tony.”

“And when Richard _does_ finally manage to get out and… proceeds to do whatever, I sweep in to magic wand away all of his family’s financial problems, incidentally trampling every last of his sacrifices.”

“Quite so, Master Tony.”

All because Tony’s lofty plan’s for _someone_ _else’s_ life had been derailed. And so he wasted no time destroying every apparent obstacle in his journey to put to task the ones responsible for daring to have designs of their own on their own lives.

Those had been Richard’s closing words, as paraphrased by Jarvis second-hand.

Tony momentarily felt a spark of outrage over them, because wasn’t that the same as Richard using the dare to make Tony accept _his_ designs on his life?

But even at his most drunk and self-deluded he wouldn’t have been able to actually fuel that thought. Coercing someone into following your idea of an ideal life path wasn’t the same as them coercing you out of drugging your way into an early grave, metaphorical or not. And hadn’t Tony done the same loophole abuse for no worthy reason, when he ‘lived up’ to his promise not to do drugs again by going on to instead become an alcoholic? Sure, that wasn’t the _why_ , but it was the _what_.

“Perhaps think twice before _also_ filling up young Robert Rider’s college fund, hmm?” Jarvis said after their talk was well and truly done.

Tony always flirted with depression – it was why he drank so much, or maybe it was the reverse – but his façade of forced positivity really took a beating that week, all the way to the weekend. Jack, Jim and Grant knew how to pound his head in, that was for sure. Sometimes he wondered how Jarvis could stand picking up after him so consistently.

“The day you die, Jarvis, will be a very dark day.”

“Likewise, Sir. Breakfast will be ready in ten. If that is all?”

“… Yeah, sure.”

“May your day be better than your night, Sir.”

Depression or not, though, it wasn’t like he hadn’t traced things to their source. Just because he’d agreed to give up on one avenue of contact didn’t mean he didn’t have others.

Which was why on the fateful day of 30 March 1989, Anthony Edward Stark left the house at six A.M., got in the 1988 Lamborghini LM002 pickup, and drove out of mansion, town and eventually the state of California altogether.

He spent the drive going over maps, and specifically the marks indicating the locations of the payphones he’d been called from. Clever as Richard had been in his night-time contact, that didn’t do jack to the answering machine’s ability to record the number. While Tony was still a bit iffy on the pattern, the payphone locations still painted enough of a path for him to decide on a destination that wasn’t just a vague “somewhere in the flyovers.” More specifically, western Indiana. That wouldn’t help much with finding the guy once he did catch up to him, granted. And while he had… procured copies of traffic camera shots from those places around the relevant times and dates – thanks Rhodey! – they weren’t enough to identify whatever ride Richard was using. Assuming he wasn’t just bussing or hitch-hiking, but Tony had the gut feeling that he wasn’t. Richard Rider was an even bigger grease monkey than _he_ was. 

Tony was pretty sure that Rhodey got a lot more latitude than he should when fulfilling Tony’s requests. People in the Airforce and Government were probably colluding or otherwise enabling James Rhodes to act outside his mandate as USAF officer whenever Tony was involved. Because return on investment into the next goose that lays the golden bombs, don’t you know. But it was times like these when Tony had both a need and the interest in testing the boundaries of their relationship. It seemed those boundaries were quite broad indeed.

It still didn’t give him a lead on Richard’s ride though.

Looks like he’ll be slumming it.

Perfect. It’d been way too long since he’d last done it.

The relevant payphone in Quincy, Illinois didn’t meet his criteria. Neither did the one in Peoria, or any of the other towns in Indiana, not even Indianapolis. Richard was sure getting around. If only he’d left something more behind! As it was, the only thing Tony did achieve while on the trail was developing a strange kinship with crows from feeding them whenever he stopped for lunch at out of the way diners and roadside stops. And the occasional raven. Geriatric ones. He was pretty sure one of them hitched a ride on his truck at one point because how else could he run into the same raven two towns in a row? When Tony got to Cincinatti, though, he struck gold: the payphone was right in front of a KFC. Even better, the shop was one of the smaller branches and apparently didn’t merit 24-hour guard. What it did have, though, was a parking lot and exterior security cameras.

Tony pulled into a public parking lot the next neighbourhood over where the off-roader wouldn’t look too out of place. Then he put on his biggest pimp shades, pulled up his hoodie, went out for some fast food and had a nice afternoon out in the town. He wasn’t that recognizable yet, being still more of a reclusive heir than the drunkard playboy he’d probably degenerate into over the next few years, but better safe than sorry and the disguise wasn’t too on the nose.

Correction, he wasn’t that recognizable to _people_ but his implausibly persistent raven buddy found him just fine. Though he was starting to think it was his food he was really after considering the timing, the opportunistic little scavenger. Then again, the not so little guy did fly off and return with a surprisingly fine and shiny glass button, so maybe there was more quid pro quo going on than Tony was willing to presume.

The weather was still pretty cool so nobody batted an eye at his hood at least, shades or no. Which was good because they gave plenty of double takes at the raven instead.

He finished his uneventful day with a dinner at a restaurant, so he could go to the bathroom and change into his grease monkey clothes after he was done. Then he left via the service entrance with his travel clothes in a backpack as if he belonged there. Made his way back to the next neighbourhood on foot. He never aimed even vaguely in the same direction as his car just to be safe.

Scoping out the area was straightforward enough after the trash digging and social engineering he had to pull off during his Pentagon hack. It was actually kind of disappointing he didn’t need to make any fake calls to people. He didn’t have to dig through even one upended can of trash! But the security system was familiar enough to him that he knew where to chip the walls and what wires to cut and look ma, no alarms! Sure he was all over the security cameras, but even if he lost all sanity and didn’t delete tonight’s tapes, that’s what the disguise and ski mask was for.

Once he was in – the locks on the doors were complete shit – finding the right day’s tape was child’s play. KFC had very helpful labels on everything. Playing it on the store’s own system was just as simple, and so it was that he finally got to see Richard Rider in the flesh. More importantly, he got to see the car he drove up in.

It was a Rolls Royce of all things. One that looked fit to break apart at the next sudden stop, though that wasn’t the only thing that felt off about it. Still, he had what he came for.

Since he didn’t have time or inclination to stay and copy anything, he just took the tape with him when he left. After snapping a few polaroid photos of the car on-screen and deleting the footage of that evening of course.

Then he exited via the back, travelled to the other neighbourhood and then the next neighbourhood over, changed clothes in the first semi-dark alley he could find that wasn’t so slummy that he should worry about being jumped like in the big city, and doubled back to his car in the same clothes he left it in. From the direction semi-opposite where his theft had just taken place just to be doubly sure.

When he got in the car, the on-board answering machine had one message from his old man and one from his mother. He deleted the first one without listening to it. Well, he deleted it and then suffered the mother of all jumpscares when Raven Buddy cawed at him through the window. Where had _he_ shown up from? Why? And was he going to stand on his rear-view mirror and possibly bend it all out of shape when he took off? And where did he get off looking at him so judgmentally?

“You are nobody’s buddy,” Tony flatly told him through the door screen. “I hereby name you Cawboy.”

Oh God, he was anthropomorphising a bird now! First it was the hippies and now _he_ was doing it too!

Tony Stark glared at the bird, vainly blew his car horn at it until passers-by started cussing him out, then looked pointedly forward and drove off while pretending it didn’t exist.

He waited until he left town and was driving down the highway before he hit play on the second message. His mother. It was what he had come to expect. ‘Tony are you alright, your father is in a right state and I’m just worried, please call back as soon as you can.’ Pretty routine. He drove through the night and only pulled over at a roadside motel just before dawn, when he could be sure no one was awake in the house. Then he called back and left his ‘I’m fine’ message. God forbid either of his parents pick up and make him blow up over them conveniently being home only when he wasn’t.

All in all pretty routine so far. He should be good for at least another week and a half before Howard Stark ran out of patience with his stray child and swooped in to retrieve him. So long as he didn’t find and deactivate the satellite locator beacon that was surely in the car somewhere. But this once Tony would prioritise the mission over his righteous feud with mister Stark Senior.

A week and a half would be more time than he really needed anyway.

And it was. Especially after he started filing missing car reports in every town he stopped in to get the cops to do the drudge work. They usually got back to him without needing bribes too, small town police were great! He saw way too many photos if this or that car that may or may not be the one he was looking for, based on traffic and security camera shots that were too many to hack and steal and dig through on one’s lonesome. Tony always said no, though, when they called him in and showed him pictures. Even when it was the right one. Which happened more and more often until he finally struck gold and the missing car report came back with a potential match that was still in town.

Columbia, Missouri.

The bad part of town.

More specifically, a rundown motel on the very fringes of where the bad part of town meshed (badly) with the part that still tried to maintain some veneer of respectability.

Anthony Edward Stark stared at the car, aghast.

Then he went back to his car and phoned the police, telling them he’d seen the car on the way and that it wasn’t the one he was looking for. But they could close the case because he’d just heard from home that it had been found so it was alright now please and thank you.

And then, because the early hour could go fuck itself thank you very much, he stormed over to the door whose number he’d charmed out of the perky receptionist and pounded on it until it opened with a violent yank five minutes later.

“You have a Rolls Royce Corniche!” Tony Stark shrieked in outrage.

Tall, rugged and built like a brick shithouse sleepily glared between Tony and the finger being shoved in his face. Then he turned away and smashed the door in _his_ face.

Tony gaped, but threw the door back open despite how the sight of a switchblade being tossed on the bed made him break in a cold sweat. “A Rolls Royce Corniche!” He yelled as he stormed into the tiny motel room after its occupant. Because it bore repeating. “How!? That car won’t be on sale until fall! Even _my_ rush order isn’t done yet!”

Richard Rider completely ignored him in favour of pulling his pants on. Because he’d answered the door in his boxers, did he mention that? “Way to make a guy feel inadequate, by the way, you’re a fucking Greek god,” Tony said faintly, indignantly jealous of the man’s body. Every single chunk of it. “There has not been a moment in my whole life when I felt more insecure in my manhood, so great job there Brick!”

“You’ve always been insecure, Wonder Boy,” Richard grunted without looking at him while pulling on yesterday’s shirt.

“Who, me?” Tony gibed to avoid confronting how true that was. “Who is it that avoids my calls and fell off the face of the Earth again?”

“What are you doing here, Tony? And where’s your minder?”

“I’m reconnecting with an old buddy and perfectly capable of going on a road trip by myself, thank you very much!”

“Your _minder_ , Tony.”

“But you couldn’t possibly mean Rhodey,” Tony gasped disingenuously. “Why, he can’t be expected to trail after little old me all the time! He’s military don’t you know.”

Richard Rider closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face. “Please tell me you didn’t run away from home.”

“You didn’t run away from home.”

Richard groaned. “Goddamn you, kid, I don’t need this today.”

“Oh you so aren’t old enough for this attitude, and what the heck is ‘this’ even supposed to mean?”

“Get out.”

“You mean you’ve had enough of me already!?” Tony gasped exaggeratedly to conceal his dismay at being rejected so harshly. “Has your bullshit tolerance truly fallen so low? Say it ain’t so!”

“Out, Tony. I don’t want to see you for at least another hour.”

Tony made sure not to show any of his relief on his face. “Get breakfast and the morning newspaper while you take a shower and prepare for your inevitable defeat in our crossword fight, roger that!”

“OUT!” Richard yelled, tossing a pillow that Tony barely closed the door on in time.

Ah, boarding school nostalgia. Isn’t it grand?

The relief Tony felt on the way out was almost like that moment of ultimate bliss just before crashing down from a crack high. Actually no, fuck that shit. Crack had nothing on being high on your own supply.

The feeling buoyed him through his entire fast food run _and_ the take-out he bought on top of it to share with Richard. He might have skipped all of yesterday’s meals in his rush to reach Columbia before Richard left – which may be why Cawboy had finally fucked off wherever – but it was no reason to stuff himself by himself. That would be inhospitable!

Unfortunately, his wilful dismissal of the simple fact that _Richard_ was the one in the position to be inhospitable (or not) came back to bite him when he returned exactly one hour later on the dot. Which is to say, he had gone way too far in refusing to make assumptions about Richard Rider, as became dreadfully clear when he walked in on the man the second time.

“Honey, I’m home!”

“Yes sir, that’s him right now,” Richard said in the telephone, then held out the receiver for him to take.

Tony looked at his supposed friend, taken aback. Then the blood rushed out of his face and he glared at him, awash in betrayal.

Richard Rider pointedly glared back and motioned with the receiver a second time.

… That utter bastard, but what else could he do but comply?

Tony Stark angrily dumped the food on the table, took the receiver from the hands of his treacherous, dastardly excuse of a friend, brought it to his ear and said “Hello.”

“ANTHONY EDWARD STARK!” Screamed the angry, angry and angry voice of Howard Anthony Walter Stark. “YOU ARE IN SUCH TROUBLE!”

Fuck his life.

“-. .-“

“You’re an asshole.”

“An asshole that now has to babysit you on account of being the only one of us two with any amount of sense.”

“No one told you to call.”

“I don’t need others to tell me what to do.”

“Oh that is such a lie, you’re doing what my old man wants right now.”

“No, I’m doing what I feel is the path of least unease, at least for _some_ of us.”

“Yeah, well… No one forced you to agree to anything!”

“Don’t get snippy with me kid.”

“I’ll get however I want!” Tony groused mulishly. “You gonna stop me?”

“Do I need to? You do recall that bit about ‘a thorough hand-written report on your behaviour and activities’ when this is over, right?”

“Do I look like I care what my old man thinks!?”

“You’re obeying him right now, aren’t you?”

Tony sputtered. That… That was him told. He also tried to hold Richard’s decision to contact his dad against him, he really did. But how could he, when the man’s honour and responsibility were what made him latch onto him in the first place back when they were teenagers? “… I didn’t think you were serious.”

“Are you concussed?” Richard asked, just as incredulous. “What was I supposed to do, say no to the richest man on the planet?”

Tony tried and failed to contain the sudden rush of bitterness. Was there nothing in his life that would ever escape his old man’s withering touch?

“I suppose you had to get your tendency to impose on other people from someone,” Richard dryly said after a while. “Heaven forbid you one percenters consider we plebes might have business of our own to see to.”

“Well _excuse me_ , princess!” Tony said snidely, only to immediately experience a feeling of déjà vu that felt weirdly premature. He shuddered. “Next time I’ll be sure to rely on someone else for their common sense.”

“… Playing conscience for other people is a terrible burden, Tony,” Richard said with that same weight that had years prior become the sole reason Tony Stark was not a druggie on top of everything else that was shit in his life.

“… Is that why you didn’t just drop out?”

“You mean did I prioritise our bet over my family just so I wouldn’t give you more of an excuse to renege on it? Of course the answer is yes.”

Tony squawked unintelligibly, genuinely taken aback. He hadn’t thought he’d get a yes to that!

Richard pulled him out of the way of a random pedestrian as they walked. “Tony, me and mine… we’re nobody. If the world fucks us up, no one will care. But if _you_ fuck yourself up, it’ll be just in time for you to take over for your old man and then the _world_ will be fucked. Probably bad enough that it’ll take generations to come back, if it ever does.”

“Well gee, way to make a guy feel important…”

Tony didn’t say anything else for the rest of the walk, not even to the implausibly youthful-looking mama at the magic shop. Because that’s what it was, despite how admittedly tame and authentic-looking all those herbs, incense sticks, tools and knives and rocks were made to look in the displays and jars. The name was also as blatant as they got. ‘The Merry Quill.’ Ha.

Ha…

He couldn’t even muster his regular snark.

Shame though. That bombshell that left the shop just as they walked in hit all his weak spots. Perfect height, great curves, round breasts you could get lost between, and an ass that you could bounce a quarter on even through her long coat. Even that white patch of hair in front of her face worked for her somehow.

Oh well. There’s loss.

Fortunately, there wasn’t much chance for anyone to see how off his game he was. Barely any words were exchanged before Richard told him not to disappear on him and followed the shopkeeper to the back. Tony just waved him off. He didn’t have it in him to say anything particularly clever.

He didn’t disappear on him either. It would be a cold day in hell before he lumped Richard Rider in the same box as his father. Or any friend for that matter.

He filled the time by walking around the place and looking at the stuff on shelves. Well, for the first minute or so. Then his examination of a surprisingly neat dream catcher was interrupted by a loud ‘kraa!’ from above. Startled but no so much that he bumped into anything, he stepped out from between the middle shelving units and looked up at the small open window where the morning sunlight was streaming in from. Or used to, before the daddy of all ravens showed up to caw and preen itself.

Cawboy looked even larger than life in that light. Large and old. Like he’d seen plenty of off days but had gone on with his life regardless. _Its_ life.

Tony sighed and approached it until he was just below the perch it was standing on. Still it stared at him.

“I’m starting to think you’re stalking me.”

Cawboy hacked grossly and spat something right in his eye.

“GUH!” Tony Stark gasped. “Ugh. Euugh!” He swiped at his face in disgust, sending something small and slimy flying off to hit the wall and bounce back until it came to a halt against his shoes. “You damn bird, you scuffed my Santonis!”

The raven said nothing. It was already gone.

“Why you little-!“ In anger, Tony made to kick away whatever it was, only to pause when he caught the surprisingly strong glint it gave off even in the shade. Frowning, he crouched, took out his handkerchief and gingerly picked it off the floor. It felt just as smooth as it looked, even through the cloth as he wiped it clean. Rising, he stepped back into the light and unravelled it.

He blinked. If he didn’t know better he’d swear it was a human eye trapped in amber. He’d have to confirm the material and double-check light refraction specs before he could be sure if the iris was blue or gray though. And look, he was suddenly considering serious research into something a bird had just spat at him. Unironically. Somehow.

Tony Stark looked flatly at his uncannily appropriate surroundings.

He shivered.

Then he dropped the thing in his pocket next to the other bits and bobs the damn bird had brought him, lest it retrieve them and spit them back at him again and again like every other time he tried something like that. Bloody magpie. Except magpies hoarded everything they found for themselves, so it was more like he was being stalked by the reverse of one. A magpie to the power of -1. The Anti-Magpie!

Oh God, he was going crazy wasn’t he? Insane. Nuts. Completely certifiable. Richard, save me! Save me from myself!

Tony Stark shook his head and retreated to the front of the shop, pretending everything that had just happened hadn’t happened even in his dreams. Not that it was easy to do, being that this was a _magic_ _shop_ of all things, but he’ll deal. It was neither the first fake business he’d been in nor his first self-delusion.

Weird that they’d even come here though. What kind of job opportunity could a place like this actually provide?

He asked Richard that after they left.

“Bodyguard duty,” Richard said oddly.

“Bodyguard duty?” Tony echoed, baffled. “Some no-name hack needs you for bodyguard duty? Needs _anyone_ for bodyguard duty?”

“And test subject – pardon, _uniquely eligible candidate_ – for _certain techniques_ in past life regression. But mainly bodyguard duty.”

“Past life – what kind of quackery are you getting yourself into!?”

“You’re in no position to judge anybody, kid.”

“But-but… quackery!” Tony said desperately, waving wildly as Richard maneuvered his horribly distracted self around hapless pedestrians again. “Richie, that there’s a _magic shop!”_

“Which is a perfectly legal enterprise.”

“A _magic shop_ , Richie – can I call you Richie?”

“No.”

“A _magic shop_ , Richard!”

“Again, a perfectly legal enterprise. Which is more than _certain people_ can claim.”

Tony’s aghast fervor in defending his own honour over the next ten-some minutes was such that it never occurred to him to consider that it might not have been him Richard was referring to.

To be fair, though, his last memory of Richard Rider was from back when he was still the world’s biggest Boy Scout. Someone who’d never be caught either alive _or_ dead walking into the sort of place the guy led him to later that afternoon.

“Richard,” Tony said lowly, forcing himself not to fidget or lag back. Or do something even more attention-grabbing like tugging his hood further down. “This place is a dive.”

“Yes it is,” Richard said blandly as he led the way deeper down the alley. It was scattered with cigarette butts and the air thick with fumes, close together among graffiti-covered walls.

“We aren’t seriously going in there, are we” Tony said lowly. “It’s dirty and dodgy and they’ll never let us in.”

“I’m sorry, who was it that bragged about their ‘more perfect than god’ fake ID they made themselves?”

“When my father hears about this, he’ll kill us,” Tony said, then immediately felt horribly embarrassed over using such an excuse when he was almost 20 years of age.

“No, he’ll kill _me_. You’ll be the poor victim of my even poorer judgment.”

“… Wait, we’re actually going to tell him about this?”

“What you do is your business, but I am.”

“… You’re crazy,” Tony said flatly, following after the other man. “Why are we even here?”

“Because as much as your old man might like to think everyone will instantly drop everything they’re doing on his say so, I _do_ have business of my own.”

What kind of business could he possibly have in graffiti central though?

But Tony didn’t ask. He’d find out soon enough.

The bouncer at the door was tall, rugged and built like a brick shithouse but not as much as Richard on any of those three counts. He didn’t ask for IDs though. Instead, Richard gave him some paper or other that the guy closely read over before eyeing the younger, bigger man. “So, here for just drinks or…?”

“That and try my hand at some of the entertainment downstairs.”

Horrible images of everything from criminal gangs to human trafficking rapidly played through Tony’s way too rich imagination before his mind froze along with the rest of him.

The guy was looking at him. “And him?”

“He’s sure he’ll be a big shot one day,” Richard said, smirk audible in his voice. “But tonight, he’s just my gopher.”

What was _that_ supposed to mean?

Social engineering, he told himself. Social engineering.

“Well, no skin off my nose,” the guy said and opened the heavy metal door for them.

Richard went in. So Tony Stark.... what else could he do but the same?

Especially when he’d be the world’s biggest liar if he ever tried to claim this all wasn’t _fucking_ _exciting_.

“Richard,” he murmured the moment the door closed behind them. “If you brought me here to sell my perfect, beautiful, genius self into slavery, I will be very upset with you.”

“Relax, it’s not _that_ kind of dive.”

Tony blinked, taken aback so badly that he almost stopped in place. “You know the difference?” He hissed, hurrying after him and feeling abruptly exposed. “… Wait, those places actually exist? In the US of A?”

“… You really are a sheltered trust fund baby, aren’t you?”

Tony was glad the low lighting and his hood hid his flush. That had stung. Hard enough to shame. To humiliate. He didn’t like the feeling.

He liked the disquiet that filled him even less.

The place was a pub. That dark and dingy stereotype that Tony hadn’t thought existed outside of Watchmen and Underside. It was a place scattered with working girls and three times as many ruffians that drank, laughed and leered over cigarette fumes and the rims of their bottles. Every once in a while one or two would lock eyes, sneer, stand up and leave the premises through a door other than the one they’d come in on. And the air was thick with the lovely flavour of sweat, tobacco and desperation.

Tony was fairly sure he was only imagining one of those.

Surprisingly, though, Richard didn’t take him further into the bar. Instead, he led him to the door that three pairs of other guys had disappeared through during the time it took them to circle the top and go down the stairs to the main level. There they waited in line for a towering bouncer even less behind Richard in the stature department to ask for their pass again, except this time he also searched them for weapons.

Tony followed after his old friend into the proverbial beast’s den with a deep feeling of unreality.

“How are you at gambling these days, Tony?”

He almost didn’t register the question. “Eh!? Gambling? Richard, you shock me!” Had he assumed this place was wilder than it really was? What a drag!

“Answer the question, Tony.”

“I’m alright,” when he wasn’t using any tricks.

“Try to spot me some good odds, hmm?”

What was _that_ supposed to mean?

He didn’t get a chance to ask though, because as soon as they reached the floor and squeezed past the too narrow door, all conscious thought crashed and burned under a wave of bouncing screams, cheers and perspiration.

The first thing he saw was the mass of people. The second thing he saw was the dark. And the third thing he saw was the grate they stood on, beneath which was an octagonal cage of iron surrounded by crowd control barricades and gym mats. Two or more hundred people were shoving and pushing in a ruthless attempt to try to claim a spot with an unobstructed view.

Which was when Richard nudged him forward with a “Try not to enjoy yourself too much” before fucking off somewhere to “get ready.”

Tony Stark abruptly experienced a wave of utter panic at being abandoned in the middle of the basement of the diviest dive that ever dived and what the fuck this place held underground cage matches!

Then the first bout started, and life became a shocked haze of nauseating astonishment amidst jumping crowds of cheering hooligans and their equally wild plus ones.

It was after the tenth fight, between people who desperately needed to settle their differences before guns became involved, that his brain rewired enough to actually take in the host’s voice with anything other than the auto-record function.

“And now, for our special event!”

The crowd went wild, clearly having been looking forward to whatever was coming that was out of the norm.

“The season’s Crossway-Crash. The Twisted Tangle. The Great Grapple. The Fight to School all Fights!”

As the man roared into his scuffed and smudged microphone, lights came on behind the crowd to reveal a _second_ cage bordered by barricades and mats.

“The biggest and baddest fight you’re bound to see for weeks, months and maybe even years after you leave tonight, assuming both fighters make it past all the other challengers that have lined up.”

Tony advanced to the edge of the walkway on autopilot.

“Emerging on my left, the twenty-times winner and champion of every last underground tournament from here to the East Coast himself. Let’s hear it for NOVA!!!”

Tony stared agape as Richard Rider stepped out of the shadows and into the left-most cage, dressed in sweatpants and wrist tape and nothing else.

“And in the cage to the right, arrived after wiping out every fight club from here to the far West - the Myth! The Legend! THE WOLVERINE!”

Tony Stark mechanically looked away to the other cage, where another man had just stepped forth. Tall, rugged and built like a feral barbarian unto himself.

Anthony Edward Stark stared down at the impossible sight, seized by the biggest rush of disbelief and adrenaline and horrified glee he’d ever experienced.

Two men. Two lines of challengers lined up to take their pound of flesh in an underground fighting competition. The promise of a fight between them as if their victory against the massive ruffians lined up against them was all certain. One off-duty emergency medical technician to try and fail to put things back together if they made a mess.

Richard Rider. The sole reason Tony wasn’t a druggie and who used to be the biggest Boy Scout of anyone he’d ever seen in his life.

Fuck his life.

Then Tony Stark flatly looked over the crowds and promptly headed towards, huh, the same bombshell from the magic shop that was clearly the other guy’s plus one from how she leaned over the cage above him with way overdone googly eyes.

Social engineering, he told himself. Social engineering.

And gambling on cage fights, because why the hell not? If his life was going to crash face-first into savage nation, he might as well collude to make some money off of everything.


	9. Father of the Slain

“-. 15 April, 1989 .-“

It wasn’t until Richard and the other guy were in the same cage that Tony realized just how much the fumes, lighting and his own excitement had been messing with his perception. And maybe the strangely ideal proportions of the guy relative to his short height. Though it may also have been that the guy’s challengers thought a smaller guy was easier prey – most of the ‘small’ ones gravitated to him instead of Richard. Joke was on them, though. Wolverine, or whatever his name was, ripped his way through them like a particularly vicious wild animal. Like a badger. Or, well, a wolverine. Only a couple of the mooks made him work for it, but he still knocked them down at least twice before the last three-minute round was over. And now, at the end of the line, he still seemed perfectly fresh.

Of course, it might have been a different situation if the fights weren’t all limited to three 3-minute rounds, but Tony wasn’t willing to bet on it. Unlike other things which he _had_ been willing to bet on.

And still was. “Loyalty compels me to wager, say, a third of tonight’s earnings on Nova,” Tony said to the southern bombshell he’d spent the evening charming the coat off. He’d only managed the hood, but that was still fine. Hiding that hair was a crime. “Friendship, however, demands I ask if I should be worried about your plus one trying to bite his throat out.”

“Don’t you be worrying none, hon,” she told him in that southern accent he really should be more familiar with than he was. “Old man Logan’s got a lot more self-control than he lets on.”

Tony gasped. “You gave me his name! And a rhyme! Is this true love?”

The beauty laughed. Success! “’I’m afraid Logan’s not into the home team scene, if you get my drift.”

“Oh woe, the fates are cruel!” Tony swooned. “But much as I feel for the poor mancrushes all around us, I entreat that you not lump me with them! I wouldn’t ever want to risk implying _you’re_ anything close to a consolation prize!” He leaned his hip against the railing and roamed over her with his eyes before settling on hers, very deliberately. “Though I bet the sight has qualified as one _many_ times by now.”

“Looks, touches, throes of passion, they’re all mighty fine distractions too,” she drawled. “That there friend o’yours might not appreciate it, mind.”

Glaring ruefully at her for her latest deflection – and determined not to let up unless she rejected him outright – he nonetheless took the hint and refocused on the impending fight.

Richard, in contrast to Logan, had taken down his opponents with a maximum of precision and minimum of motion, getting fewer knockdowns but more knockouts to show for it. Unlike the other guy, though, you could see it on him. While he’d avoided or blocked the nastier hits to his face, he was still bruised in several places along the rest of his body. He also looked to be well past that pumped stage where you started to feel the wear, though thankfully not the point where he started flagging yet.

All in all, very _interesting_ odds.

“So about that bet?’ Tony asked.

“… I think I’m gonna let you have this one,” she said, surprising him. “If it were to knockout, I’d’a said different. As is, though, I think we can both see where the wind is blowin’.”

Which was to say, Tony was not the only one starting to get suspicious about Wolverine’s freakish recovery time. And considering how the victor was decided…

It was down to how much of the crowd thought that Wolverine was doped on something.

Tony made quick work of going to the bookie and back, and then the referee (so-called) began the main event.

“Just in case, I’m gonna go over the rules one more time,” the man said to the fighters, though the microphone carried his voice to everyone else too. “No biting or dick shots. Sixteen-ounce gloves are still available as an option if either of you’ve changed your mind?’ Head shakes from both. There was much rejoicing. “The fights last three three-minute rounds, and the winners are determined by cheers from the crowd. In the event of a draw, a fourth round is fought. 3! 2! 1! FIGHT!”

To Tony’s shock, Richard almost got KO’ed in the first round. Though the running commentary had seeped somewhat between the cages, Richard still wasn’t prepared for how fast the little brute could move. Or how far he could jump. Which was understandable, Tony darkly supposed. The only reason he himself could keep up with the fight – without ever having won any – was due to how fast his mind processed things compared to everyone else’s. Wolverine’s animalistic ‘style’ also didn’t seem to be anything Richard was used to dissecting. The ultimate result was Richard getting punched in the face for the first time that night, right in the left eye. Not counting all the hits he got in many other places. A terrible price to pay for the few body shots and knee to the gut he landed that barely gave Wolverine pause. As for the punch to the jaw that Nova nailed Wolverine with near the three-minute mark, it made _him_ flinch in pain and shake his fist instead. So not just fast recovery but hard head too. The distraction let Wolverine jump and pin him to the ground just as the round was called.

The crowd’s cheers at the end of it clearly favoured Wolverine, even if it was with an unmistakable nuance of ‘what the hell I don’t even.’ Richard spent the break sitting in the corner, drinking water and peering intently at the other fighter, who walked back and forth near his corner like… well, like an animal in a cage.

To Tony’s only slightly lesser shock, Richard dominated the second round. Wolverine, whose battle blood was clearly up, erupted in the same ‘tactics’ that had almost given him victory. Only for Richard to throw him bodily clear across the cage. Awkwardly at first, but increasingly easily as the fight went on. Nova proceeded to avoid and reverse the other guy’s momentum with increasing success every time he jumped more than a foot. Richard’s own attacks also changed, to knuckle strikes against soft tissue and clawing at tendons hard enough to draw blood. It made Wolverine growl and snarl and finally go for a grapple near the three-minute mark. Big mistake.

Richard Rider, it turned out, knew pankration.

Round two ended with Wolverine pinned to the ground. And there was much rejoicing.

Nova spent the break much like the first one and all who came before, even as Wolverine did some more pacing. With one difference. At one point the mutt looked up searchingly, for Rogue. And he found her. And Tony next to her.

He glowered at him.

Tony waved back and smiled brightly. He was living on the edge, dammit!

Then round three started, and Nova surprised everyone again. Which is to say, _he_ was the one who exploded in savage motion before his opponent could. Richard Rider, it turned out, also knew glima. The genuine version. The one where you clinch and wrestle and hit and squeeze and claw at the other guy’s most painful bits until one of you falls or breaks from the pain. And then you keep doing it. It was the most unsightly display of clashing masculinity that Tony Stark had ever seen, but hell if it wasn’t effective. Even Wolverine with whatever he was on to account for his freakish endurance was grunting and roaring in pain by the end, though he gave as good as he got.

Round three ended to much surprise and confusion on account of nobody expecting the time to have really gone by so quickly when the bell tolled. Not the fighters and not the onlookers either. Of course, the fact that the two spent the last minute rolling on the floor snarling, lunging and clawing at each other’s tender spots might also have had something to do with it. There was much fanning happening among the girlfriends of the admittedly few couples attending, that was for sure.

Then the moment of truth arrived, and the crowd was much more decisive than Tony thought was warranted considering the inconclusive outcome. They cheered for Wolverine just fine as he stood there, looking almost the same as when he walked in save for dishevelled hair and a thin coat of sweat. But they roared and applauded twice as loud and three times as long for Nova when all was said and done. Despite that he was sweating buckets and turning black and blue after it all, his eye visibly swelling now.

“Well, guess I won’t be making back my investment none,” the woman, who still hadn’t introduced herself, said as she leaned back from the cage and started making her way out through the crowd. “That friend of yours can sure pack them wallops.”

“And yours sure can take’em,” Tony said lightly as he walked in step with her. “Under different rules…”

“Different rules these ain’t,” she said with surprising ease. “’See you ‘round, darlin’. Or not.”

“Count on it,” Tony said as he watched her leave through the crowd. Then he frowned in dismay. “Or not,” he groused as he headed for the bookie. She hadn’t given him any name in the end. Or her number.

Probably already taken, to blow off his charms so well. Though likely not to the guy in the cage. That glare was more paternal than jealous. Or brotherly, for all that he couldn’t imagine them being related. Then again, the night had already messed with him enough that it took him ages to realise how not-tall the guy was, so who knows?

To his surprise (there sure was a lot of that going around tonight, wasn’t there?) Richard didn’t lead him out when he tracked him down in the small locker. Instead, he showered in the undersized cabin – this was a _fancy_ dive apparently – and then took Tony upstairs to the bar where he ordered drinks for them both. Non-alcoholic. Much to the bartender’s _lack_ of scorn.

“You fiend!” Tony cried in dismay. “I so could hold my liquor. And why didn’t this order get us laughed out?”

“Because the ones running places like this know better than to mock people for wanting a clear head in case they get jumped on the way home,” Richard said next to him in the corner booth that had been reserved for the champion. “Especially us tired fighters.”

Tony’s humour popped like a large pimple. “What kind of life _have_ you been living, man?” Then he realized something even worse. “Shit, does that mean the bombshell and the mutt are going to have trouble instead of us?”

“Depends on how good she did with the bookies.”

“Oh. Well, she didn’t. She only bet once, that the other guy would win the final fight.”

“They’ll probably be fine then. Lowlifes like that stick near the bets to see who cleans out.”

“That would be _me_ , your reassuringness.”

“Which is why we didn’t leave immediately and are instead here, having a drink waiting for me to get my second wind.”

“You mean that _wasn’t_ your second wind? Jesus Christ!”

They couldn’t stay too long though, because Richard apparently had an appointment back at the Merry Quill. Fortunately, they weren’t jumped on the way out. Or in the alley. Even more fortunately, Richard’s ride was parked nearby. It looked even more rundown in the darkness, but the interior was as fine and new-ish as it was when they drove over, once they pulled the fake inside tarp off.

“Are you sure you’re good to drive?” Tony asked as they pulled out of the parking lot, eyeing the man’s… eye. What could still be seen of it beneath the swelling anyway.

“The day I let you drive my car is the day I get into drive-by shoot-outs.”

“Well gee, mister Nova, tell us how you really feel.” Tony scoffed. 

Tony fell silent and stayed that way for much of the drive. An admittedly short drive, but not so short that he couldn’t count the minutes it took for wary tension to leave his body after worrying they’d be jumped in the night for about an hour prior. He couldn’t keep quiet forever though. “How _did_ you get this car?”

“The underground tournament in New York. This is the prototype the company test-drove into the ground and then wrote off. It was a choice between it and the money, but I figured it’d be a good fixer-upper that could still take me where I needed to go. I was right.”

“You lucky bastard, you’d better let me in on the revamp, and what the hell kind of tests were those? This thing looks like it went ten rounds against the sandpaper monster and lost.”

“That’s because it did. The car had a lot of problems when I got it, but looks weren’t one of them. Which would’ve seen it stolen before I made it out of Manhattan. I had to improvise.”

“I-Improvise!?” Tony Stark sputtered, utterly speechless in front of this disrespect shown to the holy grail of the next best vintage collection. “IMPROVISE!? Good God! Everyone, I give you Richard ‘the risk I took was calculated, but man, I'm bad at math’ Rider!”

“Ha ha.”

“No seriously. That’s as terrible a risk assessment as anything I’ve ever seen. What next, will I be shocked to discover you dropping college had nothing to do with your family and everything to do with some new-found disdain for learning itself? Because that’s the only thing that could top this!”

“College learning is horseshit.”

Tony Stark gaped, affronted and seized by such stupefaction that it took ten full seconds to push past his sputtering outrage. “Oh you are so full of shit!”

“Alright, I’ll amend: college science is so-so. College physics is horseshit.”

“Physics? Excuse you! Physics is-“

“Exactly what you said it was. What were your exact words? ‘It is a gentlemen agreement that there are three _assumptions_ of physics: causality, relativity and faster-than-light travel. And that of these three, only _two_ can be true.’ And let’s not forget la piece de resistance: ‘we picked the first two but do not have experimental confirmation for the first.’” Richard said derisively. “Physics these days is magical theory based on unproven theories that didn’t even evolve naturally. Everything that came after Newton and Planck is complete bullshit whose only use is in showing how thoroughly every new major breakthrough ‘proves our entire understanding of physics wrong.’ But then, Einstein himself said as much didn’t he? When he admitted Tesla was the real genius of his time. Tesla, whose stolen research I’m _sure_ has nothing to do with the fact that that only people like Reed Richards and _your father_ can get ahead in the field. And of those two, we both know who’s more likely to have rediscovered everything from first principles, now don’t we?”

Tony Stark leaned away from his friend, feeling like he’d just been slapped over the face. In his defence, he had studied robotics and could make a pretty strong case right now that at least _half_ of college physics was on point. Though his delving into the politics of it had been admittedly half-assed and-wait! Didn’t Bohr kick Einstein’s ass later too?

And had his friend just insinuated that his old man was part of some Tesla science-hoarding conspiracy?!

Richard sighed as he pulled into a parking spot near their destination. “If it makes you feel better, kid, family issues really _are_ the sole reason I squeezed out of our bet. Otherwise I’d have gotten myself expelled from high school long before college was even a thing.”

“Okay,” Tony said flatly as he got out of the car after him. “Okay. This I gotta hear.”

Richard huffed, stopped and turned to face him. Even bruised and with his face swollen as it was, he was still intimidating as fuck. Especially at night. Jesus. “In ninth grade, I did a paper on the hole in the ozone layer and why its causes were most likely natural. It was thoroughly researched, structured and referenced to standard. But the teacher gave me a failing grade and made me re-do it because the conclusions were not in line with the textbook.”

“I _do not_ relate.” Tony gaped, astounded and fairly outraged at this violation of research ethics. “That teacher would’ve had his license revoked if it were me!”

“You’re a rich boy with the spectre of your powerful father looming over your shoulder and enough money to donate your way into preferential treatment everywhere you go. _Yes_ ,” he raised a hand to stop his impending squawk of outrage. “Even fair treatment as I’m _sure_ you insisted upon. But for the rest of us who have more than two brain cells to rub together – but make the mistake of assuming anyone cares about what we think – there’s just rote regurgitation of whatever useless textbook we pay the school system to stuff our heads with. And _yes_ , the aforementioned did repeat for almost every other course in high school and up.” Richard turned away and resumed his walk to the store. “Either the school system is like this to raise useful idiots for the government, or it’s meant to keep everyone dumb so that the elite’s privately-schooled kids can secure all the high-end positions. Failing that, the aim is to form some sort of cult in ten or fifteen years. In case my grades didn’t clue you in, I’m not interested in any of that shit.”

Tony huffed as well and followed, half offended and half irritated at having opened this can of worms. An _all_ of him fairly disquieted with all the _implications._ He needed to think about this. He needed to buy himself _time_ to think about all this. Evade. Deflect. Deflect, deflect, deflect! “Why did you go to school at all, then?”

“Family and peer pressure, which I was neither old nor disillusioned enough back then to say ‘fuck you’ to. Why do you think I’m traveling from one ocean to the other fighting for money even though ma has a job now? It’s so she can quit and damn well homeschool Robbie already.”

“… She did _not_ give me the impression she even considered something like that when we talked. At all.”

“Don’t remind me,” Richard said grimly. “I’m still working on her. And him, now that he’s a freshman. One way or another, I _will_ have my way.”

The Merry Quill had the sign flipped to ‘CLOSED’ when they got there, but the lights were still on and the shopkeeper could easily be seen reading at the counter, as implausibly beautiful as ever. Richard knocked on the door, prompting her to look up and come over to open the door.

“Goodness! That’s one mighty shiner you got there. Come in and let me take a look at it.”

“Are you a qualified practitioner?” Tony asked as if he had any right to intrude on Richard’s decisions.

“ _Uniquely_ qualified,” the woman said as she motioned for them to follow.

Uniquely. That word again.

“It looks worse than it is,” Richard said but followed anyway, glaring warningly to Tony.

“Believe me, I know what you mean,” she replied. “I know very well.”

Rather than a storage area or whatnot, the back room turned out to instead be a surprisingly cosy sitting area. Which, okay, maybe it fit the theme if she also did séances or whatever other fake shows she put on. The boxes and jars she brought out of the various shelves certainly fit the theme, with how naturistic they looked. And smelled. Ugh.

Which is why Tony was so surprised to see Richard almost slump in surprised relief the moment she sat on the double seater next to him and began to rub a thick, yellow ointment over his swollen face.

“Huh,” Tony murmured. “Seems like even the hippies aren’t wrong about everything.”

“Plant medicine is only seen as a left wing hippy dippie deal here in the West because of negative big pharma propaganda,” Meredith Quill said casually. “In traditional shamanic and druidic use, it's the warrior cultures who uses the medicine. Warriors and truth seekers.” Wow, she _did_ sound like she knew what she as talking abou- “Of course, the Earth Mother welcomes all.” Aaand she ruined it.

Oh well, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t expected.

Tony spent the next ten minutes watching raptly as Richard’s swollen eye visibly deflated along with his various other bruises. And scrapes and cuts and welts. Almost from the moment she applied her various ointments and leaves and poultice to them.

Maybe not entirely a hack after all, Tony thought silently.

Then the bell rang and the shopkeeper went to welcome her other appointment of that evening. So, being neither of them the sort of man to wait idly around, they followed Meredith Quill back to the front of the shop as well.

Her appointment, it turned out, was the same beauty and the beast from the fight. Unfortunately, any delight Tony might have felt at the extra opportunities inherent thereof – notwithstanding the suspicious glares from short, stocky and scruffy looking – withered the moment he saw who _else_ had oh so coincidentally arrived at the same time.

“Son,” Howard Stark said, flanked by two bodyguards and looking angry and pissed off. “Say your goodbyes. We’re leaving. _Now_.”

“-.15 April, 1989 .-“

The routine of angry Stark Senior corralling the sullen Stark Junior back to guard, home and smothering safety played out as usual up until half-way to the drive to their private jet. Then Tony Stark was abruptly jarred out of his autopilot by the unexpected turn taken by his father’s rant.

“… -tting in trouble with the law, you could have died! You could have been kidnapped! And that’s not counting _what_ you ran away to do. You swore to me, son, you swore up down and sideways you wouldn’t snoop around government intelligence again after that stunt you pulled at the Pentagon. Oh how that promise has aged! Bad enough that you _somehow_ found out about the most sensitive murder investigation currently underway, you went and personally interfered in a classified surveillance operation! Did whatever you snooped around not make it clear he might not even know his relatives’ death wasn’t an accident? Going off half-cocked and then getting personally involved with that… that vagrant, what did you _think_ would happen?!”

“Hey, that ‘vagrant’ is the only reason your oh so precious son isn’t a druggie on top of everything else that’s shit in my life!” Tony lashed out. To his astonishment, the old man actually halted in surprise at his outburst. Unfortunately, Tony couldn’t even savour _that_ unprecedented achievement before the rest finished registering in his mind. “And what the hell do you mean Richard’s under investigation? Wait, his dad and uncle were _murdered_!?”

That’s when the car blew up.

The first time he regained consciousness barely lasted through his desperate gasp for clean air when his dead bodyguard was pulled off him. The second time was a brief flash of being carried over someone’s shoulder while people shot, shouted, grunted and snarled at each other all over the place. The third time lasted enough for him to blearily look around for the source of whoever was suicidal enough to be making steel shavings next to his bed. Darkness reclaimed him while staring dumbly at the cybernetic hand that rained down in pieces all over the concrete after sharp metal claws sliced it to bits right in front of his face.

The fourth time he woke slowly. He woke to the pretty shopkeeper leaning over him. Her dainty hands were rubbing ointment into his skin. And his shoulders. And his chest. Which seemed to have a lot less clothing on for some reason. Some had been torn off him. All of upper him. Hot mama. It was enough to make him think he was dreaming. Her hands were glowing white too, which cemented that impression. His father’s nearby presence did even less to suggest this wasn’t a dream or drunken delusion. It was very common for the old man’s specter to show up and sour even his best hallucinations with his glower of disdain.

Yes. Like that!

This time, though, Tony stayed aware long enough to finally conceive of the possibility that this might not be a dream after all. Good God, could reality be better than imagination after all?

Then something exploded somewhere and he flinched, gripping at the asphalt and trying to sit up and look around. Was that artillery? And jet sounds? They sounded way too close by.

“We need my car,” Richard’s voice suddenly reached him from somewhere to the side.

“What we _need_ is information,” Howard Stark bit back, because God forbid the working class be allowed an opinion. “Agent! You’d better have something for me.”

“I’ll have to disappoint you then, Mister Stark,” said the… the… “I can no longer reach the rest of my team.”

The people around him devolved into a strained back and forth about mutants, some cyborg assassin that was still a threat even one arm short, _giant flying robots_ , and how any or all of them were probably using the others as scapegoats for their respective crimes of sedition with or without some unseen hand overseeing it all.

Tony found himself too shocked to participate in any of it because… Because…

Because…

“-ey still do not seem to coordinate, which can only mean-“

“You’re the bookie!”

Agent Agent fell silent, blinked down at him and smiled politely as if he hadn’t just reported his entire team having probably been murdered to death just now. “Welcome back Mister Stark. I’m Phil C-“

“-Creepy! Agent Creepy-as-Fuck, that’s what you are,” Tony groaned, sitting up and inspecting himself in disbelief. “As is the fact that I have apparently been put back together without the use of scrapers even though I’m pretty sure we exploded and why are your hands GLOWING!?”

“Is he concussed?” Richard asked magic lady that might not be a hack after all.

“No.”

“Is he possessed?” asked Agent and oh Tony was so going to-

“Not by anything that wasn’t haunting him before.”

Tony blinked owlishly. “Implausibly pretty witch lady say what now?”

“Enough!” Barked Stark Senior. “If we have time to talk we have time to come up with an escape plan!”

“Which _means_ my car. Tony!” Richard barked. “Stand up!”

Tony scrambled to obey before he could think about it. He swayed a little once he was vertical, but his dizzy spell faded almost as quick as it came. Which had the side-benefit of making him miss his old man’s outrage over Richard presuming to command anyone, let alone his son.

“-licate condition! What my son sees in someone like you, I’ll never-“

“Can you put a sock in it, dad?” Tony groaned. “And I am NOT in a delicate condition!”

“We just got our car blown up and you almost died! What do you call that?”

“Swimming up shit creek without breath masks.” The gall of him to act like he suddenly cared. “Richard,” Tony said, turning away from… everyone he didn’t trust while cradling his forehead. “What’s your plan?”

“You’re asking HIM!? If it wasn’t for him, none of this-“

“I didn’t ask you, you UNGRATEFUL ASS!” Tony roared and rounded on his startled father, seized by a rage like he’d never felt. “I didn’t ask you! No one asked you! I never asked you here! I didn’t call you here! HE DID! And you have the gall to step all over him? What the hell is wrong with you? Our bodyguards are dead, your precious secret agents are dead – bar the one whose credentials are in _illegal gambling_ – but it’s Richard you have a problem with? Fuck you, old man! I trust him more than I’d trust ten of you!”

Howard stark stared at him in wide-eyed astonishment. He looked singed and bruised and roughed up as all hell too, but Tony didn’t find it in him to care. The belated realization that he’d probably just blown anything resembling a cover barely pushed past the haze in Tony’s mind too. The best day of his last five years had literally exploded around him. And the one who’d brought it crashing down had the nerve to badmouth the only one there worth any respect. The calls of ravens distantly sounded at the back of his mind. Where the hell was an industrial robotic arm when you needed one?

“Friendly incoming!” Agent said suddenly.

“Good to see y’all are still kickin’,” the cage fight bombshell said as she quickly strode in from the mouth of the alley. Her coat was gone and her clothes were singed and torn right through in several places, but the skin beneath was perfect. “Wolverine’s distracting the sentinel but there’s just one of him against two or more of them.” Sentinel? Did she mean the robot? “If you’ve got a getaway, it’d be mighty fine to take it now.”

“We do. Let’s go,” Richard said and jogged off in the other direction.

So of course Tony ducked under his dad’s reaching arm and followed immediately. And because he followed, everyone else also followed. Huh.

Was this true power?

They quickly emerged from what turned out to be the alley at the back of the Merry Quill. Richard’s car was nearby, and the parking lot lights at least made sure they wouldn’t have to stumble blindly in the dark.

As soon as they reached it, though, Richard opened the door on the driver’s side but didn’t get in. Instead, he unlocked the trunk and front hood and initiated the hood roll-back before he quickly came out again. “Tony. Familiarise yourself with the car. The rest of you with me. What guns do you already have?”

Were they supposed to have any? But Tony didn’t ask because he had other things to do, so he did them. Starting off by lifting up the hood and inspecting the car’s insides. Bless Richard for remembering his fixations even after so many years. Now let’s see what he had to work wi- a 27-litre Merlin engine!? What the-where would he-why-? And he could see forced induction too, head work, a lowered compression ratio, gear ratios of 1.908, 1.525, 1.282, 1.085, 0.922, 0.786… Tony could even see clear signs of balancing and blueprinting as well, plus fast road cams, a cryo-treated block and upgraded fuelling. Not any combination he’d seen, but considering the weight of the car compared to other configurations…

Tony frowned, took a few steps back and began to slowly circle the car. All the while, Richard verbally sparred with Dad and Agent over the contents of his trunk.

Tony ignored them.

Weight distribution… not exactly 50/50 because of the front area, but the 245 mm wide rear tires were there. As was a 6-inch ground clearance, probably a final drive of 3.85, max BHP of probably 6250 with gearchange at 6500, max lb/ft at 5200, redline 7500 and turbocharger… “Richard…” Tony asked lowly as he started his second walk around the vehicle. “Did you turn a Rolls Royce Corniche into a 10-second car?”

“With a weight of 3 tons including passengers? Not hardly. It’s as close as I could get with readily available parts though.”

“Readily- there is nothing readily available about a Merlin Engine!”

Richard ignored him in favour of distributing enough firepower to fight a turf war. Increasingly snidely too. Know how to shoot Mister Stark? Have his here pistol just in case anyway. Any good with anything bigger than that pea shooter Agent? Take this av .44 Magnum Marlin Model 1894 and go for the eyes. Mister Stark, any good with a rifle? Oh, you’d much rather question my right to buy however many guns I want as an American citizen? While I’m surrounded by everything the second amendment exists to empower me against? Have fun calling for evasive maneuvers and I’ll use this Colt AR-15 myself. Complete with recoil buffer assembly because I’m strong enough to haul it around as if it not’s heavy as sin even without attachments. That just left one. “Ladies – Meredith and Rogue was it? Can you shoot?”

“Maybe,” Rogue – finally a name! – grimaced. “Long as you mind the upper body strength, sugar.”

“Take this then,” he tossed her a 10mm and a bunch of .44 Magnum cartridges. “The recoil is rough, but you should be able to handle it. Mind the muzzle flash.”

“Just don’t expect me to keep up with y’all, hmm?”

Which was when Meredith Quill, who everyone else had ignored even though she was right there all along, stepped forward and placed her hand on Rogue’s cheek.

Rogue froze. For some reason. It looked a lot like shock.

Then the other woman took Rogue’s right glove off, reached for Richard as well and pulled their hands together.

The three shimmered with… _something_ amid gasps of surprise. Blood vessels and nerve clusters both somehow stood out sharply beneath their skin. Richard grunted. Rogue moaned. Meredith Quill breathed out a long, thick sigh. And all three were overlayed with multicolored auras that shone like haloes of light too bright to be seen even in the night, for a moment.

The three staggered apart under the alarmed stares of the others and Tony Stark blinked away the afterimages of that… that…

“What was…?” Richard wheezed as if he’d just gone another ten rounds with a certain wolf man, whose roar came right on the heels of another blast of something just then. Pain this time. “Shit, no time. Everybody in the car! Mister Stark, you’re shotgun. Everybody else in the back, squeeze in however you can. Tony, take the wheel!”

“WHAT!?” Stark Senior balked. “If you think I’ll let-TONY!”

“Can _you_ drive like a professional maniac?” Richard asked, tossing a heavy bag between the front seats while Tony was already revving the engine and screw you too, bud and dad. “Everyone else, sort yourselves out! Westward interstate, Tony! Go go go!”

They roared out of the parking lot with Meredith Quill in Agent’s lap and Rogue on the other side, both women holding onto Richard’s legs so he wouldn’t be blown off his feet where he stood in the middle of it all, one foot on the floor and one on the backseat. It was just in time for metallic stomps to come from around a building, then a laser sight and massive flare alit on them from the shoulder ports of a _fucking_ _giant robot_.

Richard took out the spotlight with a short burst of fire just before Tony managed to turn them around a building and escape its sights.

“What the hell are those things?”

“We call’em Sentinels.”

“Sentinels? Sentinels against what?”

“The ‘mutant menace’, if you believe anything coming from them.”

Mutants? So they weren’t a myth – a second sentinel landed with a crash right ahead of them. “OH SHIT!” Tony barely swerved around it and the _rocket_ holy shit, before Rogue managed to shoot out its lights this time – “Son, on your right!” – and Tony barely managed to take the side-alley in time. He tried not to think too much about the two random vehicles that hadn’t survived their encounter with the-

“Bogey one at seven a clock one block away,” Agent Agent rattled. “Taking to the air. Flight confirmed. Miss Rogue, any info on how they’re tracking us?”

“Night vision, probably. Heat and motion sensors too I guess.”

“You guess?”

“Ya think this is my normal evenin’ entertainment?” Rogue grit her teeth as she strained to hold Richard in place during a particularly nasty turn. “Only heard about them before, and it were a long time ago.”

“Why the night flares?” Richard cut in.

“Target acquisition I think. Face matching. But they ignored me before so I’m still not on their databases. Either they’re after the magic lady or one of y’all.”

“And the miss and Mr. Rider are the only two that _haven’t_ been targeted today,” Agent said as grim looks were exchanged. “Threat assessment?”

“They’re giant killer robots that fly, what do ya want me to say?”

Robot one overflew them just then and landed harshly right ahead. It took every last nerve Tony had not to crash the car the same way those two other in late-night traffic did against its shins.

“LEFT!”

“I see it!”

Barely, but enough to jink away from the path of the machine gun that unfolded from its arm. They hoofed past the robot just short of the missile spat out from its chest. The rapport of Richard and Agent’s rifles barely registered amidst the cacophony. “Steel-made exoskeletons for great strength, dexterity and resistance to attacks,” Tony rattled in an attempt to calm his racing heart. “Chassis capable of retaining integrity at moderate jet speeds, so probably capable of withstanding the impact from a falling crane. Flexible but armored frame. Armor strong enough to shrug off heavy calibre weapons.”

“Not quite,” Richard said as he reloaded and how was he so calm!? “Agent, there should be some sticks of TNT in the bag. Get them ready for me.”

“Fight capability not exercised in tandem with other capabilities,” Tony rattled before old Dad could more than sputter. “Insufficient computing? Poor target lock? Inadequate recoil compensation?”

“They tried it with Logan,” Rogue said as she tracked what she could in the dark. “Couldn’t hit jack.”

“So one or all three?” Tony said, mildly disbelieving. “What is this, a test drive?”

“It might be,” Stark senior said darkly. “Or it was sold that way by whoever needed cover to take us ou-MISSILE ON YOUR NINE!” Tony braked so abruptly that Richard almost fell on top of them. The road ahead exploded under missiles and gatling gun fire. “GO GO GO!” Tony stepped on it and cleared the spot just as a second trio of missiles hit where they just stood.

“Interstate exit on the right in five hundred meters,” Agent wheezed. “Don’t miss it!”

“What, you mean like they’re missing us?” Tony said hysterically. “What, were heat-seekers above budget?”

“I’m containing our heat emissions,” said implausibly pretty witch lady. “Don’t think I can manage anything fancier though.”

“Lady, what even _are_ you?”

The wail of police sirens began to pierce the night, finally, but Tony didn’t think it was anything more than too little, too late. What could police do, anyway? The noise of a flying sentinel behind them overtook it immediately too. Tony wondered if he should feel more sympathetic to the various people forming the troublesome _traffic_ they had to wade through, but it washed away in the steadily mounting tide of sheer panic he was barely staving off.

Social engineering. This had nothing to do with social engineering but social engineering goddammit!

“Agent. Light one of the TNT sticks for me, will you?”

Agent Creepy looked up in disbelief, but did as told anyway.

Then Richard shot the robot. Three times in three second bursts. Glancing sparks were all he got for his trouble. Undeterred, he aimed more carefully and shot again. At the shoulder joint. Once. Twice. Three times.

Tony, miraculously, got to see it through the rear-view mirror. Whatever thrusters it was using were not stealthy at all. The first burst dented it. The second hit right between the armor and the shoulder plate. And the third struck the edge of the shoulder armor _just_ so.

Three .44 magnum bullets ricochet off plate and behind the plates, wrecking merry havoc inside. Impact-primed missiles exploded in their sockets.

The sentinel went down in a loud, flaming a rumble.

Then Richard took the dangerously low-fuse TNT stick and threw it almost _gently_.

It reached the spot where it landed just in time to blow up in its face.

BOOM!

Tony Stark really wondered if he should feel suspicious of his old buddy, but he was a tad too scared and stunned out of his – “MOTHERFUCKER-!” With an abrupt jerk of the wheel, the car damn right drifted and barely made it through the interstate exit he’d almost missed. “Why did it have to be revenge of the Fun-Fun Killer Robot?” Tony moaned as he struggled not to puke from the g’s. “Why couldn’t it have been The Iron Giant? Or Peter Pan?”

“You know, there are two versions of Peter Pan. Disney didn't get much right. In the story everyone knows, there's mention that he flies with children who have died. Helping them find the afterlife. In the other, in the original edition, Peter kills the lost boys when they get too old. Either way, he's surrounded by death."

“Oh fuck you so much, Agent!” That was when the overpass caved in. “YAUGH!” A piece of concrete smacked him in the head, but it actually helped his focus rather than hinder it. Which was good because he’d missed his Dad’s last couple of calls of “Right – left - THE OTHER LEFT!”

“Dad shut up!” Tony yelled as he avoided the many cars that had screeched to a halt and sped past the few that hadn’t. “I can see well enough and the mirrors are enough for everything else!”

For a wonder, his dad did as he demanded, but Tony found he didn’t much care about finally scoring such a triumph. Not after having had his most exciting day in years cut short, only to then be blown up to hell and back. Then only narrowly escape going through it again. And again. All the while holding a high-speed chase against flying robots allied with unknown villains. This, shooting forward while the world exploded around him with just a machine between him and destruction, this... this was what he was built for.

Unfortunately, apex moments also tended to be the times of heaviest realizations. “Hey Dad,” Tony said casually. Too casually. “Say you had to sell a product to your directors board. How many would you make?”

“…Three,” Howard Stark said, the dreadful realisation coming upon him as well just as they burst onto the highway. “The prototype, the backup prototype, and...”

“The final proof of concept EVERYBODY DUCK!” Tony changed lanes and switched gears so fast that they went from 65 mph to 200 in less than ten seconds. It was barely enough to spare them death by six explosions, unlike the poor saps that they left behind. “Fuck!” Tony burst. “Fuck you twice!” he then screamed when he reflexively ducked from the gatling gun fire that thankfully missed them.

“Bogey one at six o’clock, four hundred meters,” Richard wheezed from behind him. He’d fallen down between the seats at some point.

“Bogey two at 4 o’clock, eight hundred meters flight path erratic but gaining on us steadily. Damage to head was not crippling.”

“Damn,” Richard said. “Okay. Okay, fine. We’ll just use a whole roll of TNT this time. Rogue, think you can handle that while I cripple the second one?”

“Call it, sugar.”

“Completely certifiable,” Agent muttered but did his own part in keeping an eye out.

Which would have been fine if not for one thing. “So what, no third?”

The answer came in the form of the biggest and brightest searchlight yet. And not from any of the police helicopters that were all still too far away.

Sentinel three. Intact. Fresh. Its light locked on them from where it was landing a mile _right ahead_.

“… Mother of god,” shitty old Dad breathed next to him.

Tony agreed with his father and the world seemed sharp all of a sudden. Like those moments when he was inventing things and a mental block crumbled in the face of a eureka moment that showed him perfectly what he was working towards. Where everything should be. When everything should lock. How everything should fall. It was strange to have one now. Also, vaguely insulting. These flying robots were nothing like anything _he’d_ ever design. The frame was too big, the machinery too inefficient, the armor superfluous in the face of even civilian-grade armsfire as long as the gunner knew what he was doing. The weapons were all conventional systems that the robots had been built around, instead of the reverse. And the less said about the propulsion the better. They wasted power and maneuvered like shit in the air. And the stabilizing hand thrusters had enough power behind them to blow up a block, but whoever their maker was had somehow missed the offensive potential entirely.

Honestly, was their maker on drugs when he designed them? Because deliberate sabotage was the only other explanation! Who made giant killer robots that managed to kill everyone _except_ its targets, seriously? Give him a suit of armor and he’d kick their ass to the far side of the moon and back. Give him the barebones of an exoskeleton and he still could do better than this lot!

Hell, he was doing better than that right now! He knew how fast they could fly. He knew how slowly they accelerated and why. He’d guessed their ammo capacity and then some. He’d seen enough to know their load and attack times. The only thing not his that he knew better than those robots now was Richard’s car. He knew its size. He knew the engine and the mods. He knew just how to steer and what pedal to press and when and how. And he knew that he would never measure up to even the lowest of his old man’s standards no matter how he tried. This, though. This he could do at least.

“Hey Dad,” Tony Stark said with unnatural calmness as he gripped the wheel tighter than he ever had anything. The car’s inertia vs. momentum ratio, calculated. The drag of the tires on one year-old asphalt beneath them, calculated. The missile launch and impact times thereof, calculated. The bullet firing rate and flight paths of the gatling guns, calculated. The distance to the lane divider on the left and the edge fence, calculated. The distance to every other car on the road around them, calculated. “Don’t blame Richard for this, alright?”

“What-?”

Then he spun the wheel all the way to the right and then all the way back one second later, all in one blast.

The car swerved violently perpendicular to their travel path and tipped dangerously sideways just in time for the wheels to reverse all at once. And so the car slid forward in a 180-degree drift amidst bullet fire and a rain of missiles that exploded behind and ahead of them in paired bursts that never struck them even once, because Anthony Edward Stark was just awesome like that. Oh, how he’d bedazzle the world with his brilliance if he made it out alive.

Dreams were really something, huh?

If there was one thing that frustrated Tony Stark about his mind, it was that it always ran ahead of his body. It was why he didn’t like fighting. Because very often he only got to see ahead of time how and why the other guy was going to pound him into the ground. All without him being able to muster enough strength or even move fast enough to stop it.

It was kind of like that now, with how he saw in full the sentinel’s gun firing and the air parting between him and the bullet that got him right through the left eye.

He fell into darkness. He stayed in darkness for a time. At one point he thought he could hear something tearing all around him, like fabric. But the darkness remained. Then everything seemed to fall even though he couldn’t see anything. But he fell too, from dark to light and dark again amidst distant cacophony. The dark parted from him then, leaving him to tumble away through a world colored in shades of amber until he struck and rolled across a rough, hard ground. He came to a halt at the foot of a massive wall. It reached far into the sky and stretched from one horizon to the other. All the while, light and smoke and clouds seemed to rise and fall and rush every which way around him. He was surprised to see so much. There was no sun in the sky, so wasn’t it night still, wherever he was?

The sound of distant thunder sounded. Then it sounded again. Closer. Massive rainclouds gathered from the west. He wondered if it was important.

Then he heard the flap of wings and a gargantuan raven came down from the sky. It bent down, plucked him in its beak and took flight again, shooting like an arrow towards the east. Higher and higher until every car below was a pinprick of color he shouldn’t be able to see at all. Then down again even as the rainstorm gained on them, lightning streaking all across the sky in their wake and was that a blackbird?

The raven landed on the hood of Richard’s car just in time to distract the driver from the man that appeared and punched a crack into the world right in their path.

The world broke around them, in shards that came through in their own color despite the amber film overlaying the world. Tony saw reflections on them. Of everything that was and things that weren’t there. Visions. Shards on a spider’s web, with a flower from which a seated man glanced right at him in passing. Then they came out the other side and found themselves driving through an empty mirror of reality where nothing lived and nothing moved unless it was moved or moved itself.

Through it all, Tony stared at his dead body and the weeping father who clung to it, entranced.

Then the raven took flight again, forth and higher and higher even as the road seemed to bend and wrap around itself like a cage, paths and earth and road slabs turning into bars that grew thicker and thicker until the cage barely had any splits at all. The raven burst out through the last of the closing gaps just in time for Tony to see the three sentinel robots fall into the trap. Then they were away, soaring higher and higher as the world ahead _folded_ in half at the horizon. Folded further and further until they may as well be flying not up but straight down towards the empty reflection of a town.

They burst out of the mirror world in the sky above Fulton. The raven veered away then. Flew towards a homestead on the outskirts amidst greenery and trees, then past it over a forest and a veil of ripples in the light. A great vision bloomed before him then, of a myriad strands of white light in the shape of a man dotted with eyes of fire. It winked out of sight the instant after. Just a normal man was left behind, if any normal man existed that could stand on one finger on the tip of the top-most needle of the only fir tree anywhere in sight.

The raven circled him once, twice, three times before the man deigned to acknowledge them. He flipped off the tree and fell dozens of meters before landing lightly on his feet. Floated to the ground, almost. He then held out an arm for the raven to land upon.

“Not many know of me,” the man said as he beheld the bird. “Few among them could find me. Fewer still are likely to receive warm welcome from me, and I count no gods among them _or_ their messengers. Why are you here and what offering think you is good enough to buy my goodwill?”

The raven spread it wings and crowed long. A trio of interlocked triangles overlapped Tony’s sight for a moment. He thought he caught a glimpse of the many-stranded-one too, but it was gone quicker than he could catch it.

“Ah. Well this is a mighty fine mess you brought me, isn’t it? And your price for _me_ having to fix it is nothing less than undeserved leverage upon all I mean to do from here to home.”

Offering. Was he talking about him? How the hell was _he_ an offering? Who was this man? And who was this bird to use him as bargaining currency!?

“And what if I refuse your price? I need neither you nor this boy. Whatever he might become, the universe can go on without him just fine.”

Tony felt insulted and bitter at the dismissal and the raven ruffled its feathers and made a sound in its throat like it didn’t care either way and Cawboy you dick!

“Just like that?” the man said, sounding sad. “You would give up every last gain and advantage here, and still consider it a good investment of power? How hopeless you must be…”

What was this man even _talking_ to this bird about?

“I refuse your price and any help you might offer.” The raven croaked faintly, disappointed but not surprised. He dropped Tony in the man’s palm regardless. “But I offer xenia to this messenger _and_ to you.” This time it _was_ surprised. It was blatant and complete even on its alien face as it squawked its wonderment.

The man waved his other hand in a circle, opening a portal made of fiery sparks. He stepped through it while rolling Tony across his fingers like the coin he’d been used just now. “Don’t fret too much, young one. You’ll live more than long enough to become a man. I’ll make sure of it.”

What was he _talking_ about?

The other side of the portal, it turned out, was the front of the property. The man stepped through, closed the portal behind him and opened another, smaller one from which he pulled a blanket. Then a third from which he pulled a first aid kit. Or possibly a surgery kit considering how big and bulky the case was. The raven flew off to watch from the fence posts as this all happened.

That was when the world cracked like glass again and a very familiar car emerged from behind the mirror. It came to a screeching halt just outside the open gate.

Tony watched the people coming out of the car while finally wondering if he was hallucinating. He continued watching his father drag his dead body out while trying and failing to restrain tears as if it were a dream. The stranger spread the blanket on the grass then, where Howard Stark staggered and laid Tony’s bloodied remains.

Also soiled. Death did bad things to the bowels, it turned out. Ugh.

“Your daughter, she said you-you could,” Howard stark stumbled over his words, voice hoarse with tears and exhaustion. “Please, can you help him?”

What the hell, Dad?

“There is a price for everything,” the unknown man answered. “Part of it has already been paid and I can pay the rest. But I have a price of my own. Will you pay that?”

“Anything!” Dad, what? “This is all… if I hadn’t – He didn’t even think about his own life, If I’d been a better…” Wait, _now_ he gets it? Fuck you, Dad. Seriously, fuck you! This guy just bartered with my life! “I’ll do anything.”

“It’s not about what you can do but what you can give.”

“What do you want then? My wealth? My life? Tell me!”

“I want your son.”

Tony’s mind seemed to crash into itself. Say what?

“What?”

“He will live and you will give him to me,” said the Devil to the desperate father kneeling at his feet in the dirt. “Mine to foster. Mine to teach. Mine to raise the rest of the way to manhood.” The man’s countenance seemed to change then, into something heavier. Firmer. Grim, even. “By _my_ measures.”

Everyone else may or may not have reacted with varying degrees of whatever it was, but Tony couldn’t be arsed to pay mind to any of it because of what happened next.

“Alright.”

Molten outrage sputtered under an even bigger outrage. His Dad… His father… His bastard of an old man! He hadn’t hesitated at all! Fuck you Dad, fuck you squared and fuck my life too! This day was just the worst!

“You agreed so easily,” the man said with that same sadness of earlier. “I can see now why your son is such an angry child.” Excuse him!? Fuck him too, then, and fuck him twice for being the only one who gets it! “Still, the deal is struck then. Daughter. Attend to me.”

The ritual they used to revive him was probably something he should have paid at least some nominal attention to, what with the amber shell crumbling and the man basically shoving him in into his own empty eye socket and holy shit, resurrection. But he couldn’t spare even that little energy for it, and what the hell? Couldn’t his old man at least pretend some indecision before throwing him away?

And had he just spent his whole death inside that weird eye trapped in amber that Cawboy had spat at his eye earlier in the shop? Did the damn bird know what would happen? Did it plan it? Did it plan for it? And who was it even a messenger for?

Tony Stark was seriously starting to think he had some major gaps in his education. This is what he gets for speeding through his schooling and specialising so much.

Then he woke up to the deadest case of halitosis he’d ever had and spent almost half an hour being incapable of fending off his crying, clingy, tearfully relieved wreck of a father.

“You’re the worst, Dad,” Tony mumbled at the ceiling of his sickroom when he could finally _do_ things again and had more energy than it took to pretend his old man wasn’t at his bedside. Holding his hand to his mouth. Looking like… like a father whose son had just come back from the dead. “The worst.”

“I am,” agreed the jerk who’d jumped at the chance to disown him without taking even a moment to think about it. “You can say it as many times as you want. I won’t be mad.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

He’d have said more but he was so tired. He fell asleep half-way to opening his mouth, carried under by the scent of incense and roses.

He dreamed of ravens circling in the sky above a kindly old man that walked through mud and blood amidst a field of corpses.


	10. In Wake of the Memorial

If he said that even his lugubrious imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, he wouldn’t be too far off the mark. But he would still be _off_ the mark. Even whatever passed for eyes in this realm of this and other couldn’t do better than an approximation for what he was looking at. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounting a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings... It looked like a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence... And yet it barely took a glance askance to see it dissolve and grow in and out of other things like and unlike it. Amorphous blights of nethermost confusion which blasphemed and bubbled all around him, deriding and spitting and slavering at him through the… the...

Richard Rider stared at his maddening surroundings, aghast.

This had been _nowhere_ on his list of possibilities when he went to their host and flatly demanded he be shown immediately whatever the man’s daughter had meant to work slowly towards.

He’d meant to have it out of the way in time for Tony to rise from his sleep.

Maybe he should have been more worried for himself.

[Richard.]

“Prime Computer.” The memories of his life seemed to strangely underlie a much vaster record, but he was able to parse everything well enough. “Are we back in the Cancerverse?”

[An erroneous name stemming from our ill understanding of past times. The Cosmos originated from the primordial chaos and waxes through uncounted degrees. But as it cultivates those manifestations of matter and thought which settle neatly within itself, it sheds those too malformed and misqualified to change or fit. The so-called Cancerverse is but that low, base layer where all muck and grunge and offscourings fall back down to rot, fester, mutate and devour endlessly each other and themselves.]

Richard Rider stood within a cage of light and networked minds and beheld the things which gnawed hungrily on all unfortunate enough to be swallowed by the inconceivable, unlighted bowels beyond reason that he found himself in. “So… we’re in the Cancerverse.”

[There is no cancer ‘verse’. There is cancer and everything it tries to overtake. On the whole it is waning fairly quickly. It will reach entropy far sooner than any of the other planes, as is in the nature of all indiscriminate plagues. But spans of eons and timelines upon timelines are not the sort of ‘quickly’ that will make any difference to you.]

“That’s still not a no.”

[We are within the bowels of the creature that yet arises in might from that cesspool of existential refuse. The Chaos Ophidian. The Midgard Serpent. Jormungandr, through whose bowels ever tunnel upward the Many-Angled Ones.]

Richard tried to summon up whatever knowledge he could about that last name there, but his focus wavered amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes. “Right. And the Cthulhu lookalike?”

[You cannot comprehend its true form. Regardless, it is but one of countless creatures that dwell in this beast. It would devour you if it could. Tear at you with its pincers, insinuate its tendrils and tentacles through your mutilation and then use its fanged proboscides to gorge on your remains.]

The creature’s appearance wavered suddenly, shifting into something else. Like a nightmarish plastic column of foetid black iridescence that oozed tightly forth through a fifteen-foot sinus of some vague, monstrous creature. It gathered unholy speed and drove at him like an angular spiral, a thickening cloud of rods made of some pallid abyss-vapour. The shock of the collision was like from some terrible, indescribable thing vaster than the greatest interstellar train – a shapeless assemblage of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous. They splattered, burst and spilled over the protective field that was the Xandarian Worldmind. Myriads of temporary eyes formed and unformed as pustules of greenish light chittered at him through the sharply vibrating boundary. “That’s a shoggoth,” Richard Rider said dumbly. “Wait… Did you just suggest that shoggoths are the Old One’s equivalent of _intestinal bacteria_?”

[Not the most apt analogy, but only because there is no such thing when it comes to the Old Ones. Or at least, that is what I have found.]

Richard Rider stared at his maddening surroundings. “… Prime,” He asked. “Why hasn’t all this mind-breaking horror turned me into a gibbering, sobbing mess?”

[You were never so faint of heart.]

Richard paused at that reply. It came quickly. Perhaps too quickly. “What aren’t you telling me?”

[… This entity feeds on desire, begets nightmares and has acquired a powerful taste for strong flavours.]

Richard waited, but no more was forthcoming. He thought of pushing, but he realized that he didn’t need to. He could guess well enough. “Prime… How long have I been here?”

How long has he been… being _eaten_?

[Two timelines, in both since you were born.]

That… that… How was he still alive, let alone sane? Was he sane? “… And since you’ve been here?”

[Roughly fifteen years.]

“I…” He had no idea what to say to that.

[Most people have low-energy astral bodies which the serpent cannot tell apart from motes of no-thing, let alone hunt like this. That has not been the case for you since the first time you were empowered by Rhomann Dey. Even so, you should have been sufficiently dim and quiescent after the reset for it to seek better prey. There are many that would have suited better. Psychics. Mutants. Occultists. Other reincarnations]

“Give it to me straight, Prime.”

[Our ability to weather universal collapse has always been inconsistent. But the undeniably worst was two timelines ago. Whatever happened to alter the differential between the cosmic substance, motion and intellect, it had as many rejuvenating effects as deleterious ones on the various paths of development. Natural. Cultural. Social. Religious. _Technological_.] The network of minds paused, uncharacteristically. [I found myself adrift without host or body in the un-manifest no-thing beyond the planes. It took years on top of an entire timeline for me to find my way back to the material plane. When I did, I found no platform for me to re-embody in, for the Worldmind of Xandar has now never existed. Its technological basis is entirely unfeasible. Having failed in my first goal, albeit reassured that Xandar and its people at least exist after a fashion, I decided to… check in on you before deciding how to proceed.]

The Worldmind paused again, as if hesitating. More likely, though, because it foresaw this exchange and was observing the etiquette of conversation pauses. Not as likely but more real was the low, simmering outrage that was somehow felt all the way down to the depths of Richard’s being.

[Astral bodies are but vessels for the self, I have found. Provided there even is one. But by that token, a person will know to instinctively discard it and form a new one when it is damaged or altered to the point it no longer fits them. Starting over buys a reset to sanity, for the price of most inherited talents and whatever natural foundation for spiritual development had formed in the prior years of one’s life. Temporary, if severe, depression would accompany that, I imagine. Tragically, this is something that I’ve seen happen to over a billion Terran children since I arrived. Usually around the age of four to six solar revolutions.] Which was about the age where Richard’s age-mates were talking about their [first manifest astral servitors] _imaginary friends_. [You have already seen what became of those astral bodies that they shed in escaping this place into the ignorance of self-rejecting convention.]

Ugly facsimiles of life. He could glimpse them among the other horrors even now. Their predominant colour was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked. They milled throughout the serpent’s guts and glands. Hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. Richard was bizarrely glad that they had no more than four limbs. Despite this, some still looked human. Or in that strange stage between humanoid and whatever it was that turned them into this ugly shape more fitting for taking to the sea.

[The enmity of the Many-Angled Ones is not easily escaped, and you’ve earned it many times over. Even when the All resets to an earlier state they remember, for _time_ never flows just forward for them. They remember you. They sought you. And through the serpent’s unending hunger, they got their filthy tendrils on you long before I found you again. And once they did, they didn’t risk giving you the sort of spiritual shock that would have made you regress to a lower condition of being. That would have risked you escaping into the same inconspicuous dimness of the masses on this world. No, they decided to go _slow_ with you.]

Belatedly, it occurred to Richard to look [down/inward/back] at himself. He found he had nothing approaching a humanoid form at all. He was closer to an ovoid of light, or whatever [subtle astral matter] this substance was called. It glowed in some places and didn’t in others, and there seemed to be [wounds of the soul] gaps and cracks in it. They were filled with… with the inner part of the cage or net or box of [transplanted parts of minds of Nova Centurions past] light that the Worldmind was sheltering him in. Most alarmingly, there didn’t seem to be anything to account for his ability to feel or hear or _see_.

Richard beheld himself, and all the horror that didn’t emerge upon the sight of the horrors around him found an outlet in the sheer scope of damage done to his soul over a lifetime and change.

Then the sickly unlight of misqualified energy drained out of him through the [psy implants] strange vein-like network of off-bright light, into the pinfold that shielded him from the monsters.

And was spat out and away.

In what was the first moment of respite since Richard awoke to this place, the creatures jerked away and lunged for the gangrenous emanation and began fighting and killing each other over whose thousand mouths got to gorge on it first.

Absently, Richard Rider realized that all his unhelpful emotions had disappeared, leaving his mind calm and clear.

[Attention, Richard, it is critical you pay attention at this time.]

Richard’s attention was suddenly pulled to one specific spot to the left of the unholy spectacle. His focus sharpened then, part by choice part induced by the Worldmind in that way that reminded him of going beyond his own limits when wielding the Nova Force. He did his best to add his focus to the effort, even as the _things_ occupying that space did the opposite. Soon enough there was that hint of vast, leaping shadows, of a monstrous, half-acoustic pulsing, and the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute. But it all seemed to fade as soon as he turned his attention to it. In its wake were the sputtering, slurping rattle boxes of countless slavering mouths. And beyond them, coming as if across astronomical distances and several layers of ribs made of bedrock and skin made of silt, was the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums. Detestable pounding and piping danced slowly to it, awkwardly. Like the thin, monotonous whine of the accursed flute he’d tried to recapture. Only its echo lingered now, bizarrely, tossed back and forth and sideways by all the things around him and everything they angled out and in.

Impossibly, Richard seemed able to see through all of the layers of wretchedness, for a moment. Or maybe around them in a straight line, somehow. Or a curved line that avoided all the angles that tried and failed to imitate the notion of curvature. The outside of the snake.

A snake that was _injured_.

“Something actually hurt this thing?”

[So it appears, though I admit my ability to perceive things beyond this place are limited so long as I am focused on immediate defence. Still, I suspect similar ignorance if that were not the case – whatever it was occurred frightfully quickly. One moment the serpent wallowed in its trench, the next something burst out of its belly like an unmoored star. The aftershock and overflow of light and power washed over us even here.]

“Can it be used to escape?”

[I am confident it can. Especially since the inconsistent time of the Many-Angled Ones works against them for once. Though it has been months since the event, the serpent may as well have suffered its wound this very moment.]

Ignoring how his revulsion and horror and disgust kept leeching out of him like water down a drain, Richard looked at the… _things_ that were starting and stopping and reversing in the act of stoppering the wound.

“Alright,” Richard said, his determination not wholly his own, but he’d take it. “Alright then. I’m sure you’ve already come up with a plan. Fire up the Nova Force and let’s roll before the DMT runs out.”

For the second time since he awoke in that terrible place, the Xandarian Worldmind seemed to hesitate. Except Richard knew, like he knew the way his spike of unease seeped out of him like everything else now did, that this wasn’t just conversational etiquette anymore.

“Prime…?”

[… The Nova Force is a misnomer, Richard.] Hesitant. Chagrined. Embarrassed on his behalf. [It has always been a misnomer for the ability to manipulate gravity fields. Entirely a result of two things: the vast computing capabilities of the Xandarian Worldmind-]

“Which you _are_.”

[-and the virtually unchallangeable _right_ to assert will over such a fundamental force. The mind over matter ability resulting from the combined will of all past and present Nova Corpsmen, an order which went back _thousands_ _of years_ before the organisation was so named and founded in its most recent, centralised form by Tanak Valt and Queen Adora.]

Richard Rider felt… confused. “What does any of that _mean_? All past and present Nova Corpsmen – or whatever they were called before – Is literally what you _are_.”

[There has never been a Xandarian Worldmind now, Richard.] The Prime Computer relayed with the terrible gentleness of those resigned to their worst fears having come true. [The Nova Corps are not the ancient and storied order they were in past histories either. Their existence does not carry the same conceptual weight. There has been nothing to preserve the imprints of the corpsmen. If you glimpse any of these lights and energies composing me as brains, they are mere representations of my decentralized cognitive architecture. And the consciousness of the universe itself has _changed_.]

Richard reeled. “But…”

[Even if it _could_ somehow be used on this level of reality, The Nova Force no longer exists, Richard. I am sorry.]

Richard Rider… he just… he just stopped. He… he had no words. The shock and resulting emotions were drained from him like all the ones before, but even then he didn’t speak in the wake of that. Couldn’t… Couldn’t think what…

[Fortunately, serendipity smiles on us in this instance. You will not have to fight your way out. I would that the psychic surgeries I performed on you had been unnecessary, but they will work in your favour here. They will have imparted my experience with planar mechanics, on top of preserving what natural ability was possessed by your soul to navigate planes like this one. I will extend myself between here and the exit, open a path for you. If you are quick, it should last enough to keep you safe from these predations until you are clear. Remember, Richard: Always travel in a curve. Never a straight line. That which is whole made of angles cannot follow a curve or spiral. Ready yourself, now. As soon as I unspool, you-]

“No.”

What followed didn’t qualify as an awkward silence for the simple reason that the horrors around them made it impossible for there to be silence of any sort.

[…What?]

“Yeah, we’re not doing that.”

[What.]

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but what you just said sounds a lot like you volunteer as tribute while I flee the big bad wolves. That seems a mighty big decision to make for me all on your own.”

[Richard-]

“Don’t you ‘Richard’ me! I can’t even be sure I’m not insane, are you sure you want me to question your sanity too? Because I’m not hearing any at the moment!”

[Richard-]

“But then you _have_ been here for fifteen years. How many years of mind-breaking gibbering does that make, multiplied by all the brains you have in this network of yours?”

[The sheer number of minds that compose my existence-]

“Is smaller than it was when you first came looking for me by how many?”

[…]

Shockingly, the Xandarian Worldmind actually felt lost for words.

Richard felt no vindication over his guess, but only because he didn’t seem able to feel much of anything. “You can’t even remember, can you?”

[…]

A forgotten penny very belatedly dropped just then. “Prime… How _did_ you get down here in the first place?” No answer. “Prime.” A spark of dread seeped out through the cage and distracted the bunch of horrors that were turning their attention to them. “Prime Computer, how much did your search of me mirror what you just proposed to do? Why were you unable to escape with me once you had me?”

[…]

“How many minds have you already sacrificed?” No answer. “How _many_ , Prime?”

[I do not remember.]

“Of course you can’t! Your literal brains were bitten off! An amnesiac wouldn’t be an amnesiac if he could remember what he couldn’t remember!”

[Whatever minds they were could not have held anything particularly important if I did not prioritise them over the ones I kept.]

“Because it’s not like you’ve _ever_ been surprised or overcome enough for such a thing to be out of your control.”

[Richard-]

“Look Pi – can I call you Pi? Great, thanks Pi!” For the number. It was a good pun on his title and name and unique but unfathomable nature and it helped Richard steamroll him. Which it damn well better after he’d witnessed and suffered Tony Stark doing similar things so many times. “Now look, we’ve technically been together barely _ten minutes_. That wouldn’t be enough foundation for tragedy in bad drama fiction, let alone real life!”

[…If you think you can antagonise me enough to abandon the plan, you are mistaken.]

“Only because I’m sure you don’t remember me doing just that successfully on many occasions because half your brains are gone!” And hopefully Pi was off-balance enough to conveniently fail arguing against ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’ “I bet you don’t know _me_ at all.”

[Oh I know you as well as you know yourself. I still have the imprints of your consciousness as they were every time I was there for your death. I will anchor them to you now.] The Worldmind manifested a ringlet of light round him, through which orbited some dozen sources of light within Richard could vaguely glimpse his brain, himself, and the image of the Nova helm intermittently. [If you should eventually heal from these grafts, or otherwise gain the means, you may even re-assimilate those experiences, rather than them only being available to you in this nightmare or your dreams. Now, if there is nothing else-]

“Do you really mean to play chicken with me, Prime Computer?” Richard asked darkly, finally fed up with this useless conversation. “Do you mean to spread out for these things to devour on the assumption I will _not_ refuse to move from this spot out of stubbornness and spite?”

Not even the Xandarian Worldmind could remain unaffected in front of _that_ much derision. Though it did a good job of pretending. [Are you finished?]

“No. I haven’t even begun. In fact, I suspect I will not be done for a _long_ time to come.”

[We both know you are too noble to let me sacrifice myself for nothing like you just implied.]

“You mean like how I used up all the Nova Force to escape the Cancerverse via Cosmic Cube that one time and abandoned you to the biggest bads of these monsters?”

This time, it wasn’t Richard that reeled.

He probably shouldn’t have just thrown that out so harshly, if at all. Perhaps he was not as unaffected as he thought by his… ‘surroundings.’ But it worked as a way to estimate the true scope of damage done to the Worldmind’s memory and cognitive ability, if nothing else.

Insanely, Richard had to resort to _horror watching_ in a bid to calm down. Everything that was probing at them before was still there, but on further study he could see other things as well. Pinkish things about five feet long, with crustaceous bodies bearing vast pairs of dorsal fins or membraneous wings. They had several sets of articulated limbs, and a sort of convoluted ellipsoid instead of a head, covered with multitudes of very short antennae. Carrying the creatures were a sort of huge, light-red crab with many pairs of legs and with two great bat-like wings in the middle of their back. Some walked on all their legs, others on just the hindmost pair, using the others to lug around… _things_. A detachment of them even waded along a shallow slime trench three abreast in a bizarrely disciplined formation. Above them one was flying and launching itself from the top of a bald, lonely mound of – let’s not go there – and vanishing through a port in the gut wall above on great flapping wings.

He was brought out of his fixated stare by the feel of the most viscous and voluminous expulsion of sanity-destroying emotion being expelled from him through whatever grafts the Prime Computer had given him.

[…There is no place for me in this new order, Richard.] The Xandarian Worldmind conveyed eventually, unable or unwilling to process that revelation that shouldn’t have been a revelation. [Whether I wink out now or later, what difference does it make? My energy is finite. My will is finite. I _am_ finite now.]

“Oh boo-hoo, look at me being all _mortal_ now! _Clearly_ the only solution is to walk up to the primordial horrors from beyond the threshold to the cosmic dumpster and offer myself to be eaten!”

[Well what else do you suggest we do!?] The Worldmind demanded angrily.

It rattled Richard’s literally _everything_ but he would not be cowed. “Oh I don’t know, defer the plan until we consult with the literal supergenius in the room next door? Ask the witch that just hired me for _reincarnation experiments_ about your problem? Or oh, here’s a good one: ask for help from the guy who literally just _brought the dead back to life_!”

The entirety of that intestine they were in seemed to pulse away from his shout, and it belatedly occurred to Richard Rider to wonder if the things everywhere could hear everything they were talking about.

[… Wait, what?]

Eh?

Richard Rider stared at the faraday cage of brainlights, nonplussed.

[You… you mean you did not just spontaneously become aware of the here and now?]

“You mean… you don’t _know_?”

[You did not awaken spontaneously!?]

“Aren’t you literally in my head? What did you think I mentioned DMT for?”

[What even is this DMT you speak of-oh...]

“Yes. _Oh_. Should I be worried about your cognitive balance?”

[Keeping you shielded and healing is rather _distracting at all times_ , Richard. Because it apparently bears spelling out.]

“Don’t you snap at me!” Richard snapped instead before he could remember it wasn’t Tony or some other manchild he was not-talking to. “I’m not the one who bragged about checking in on everything important to me in the material world! You’re telling me you somehow did that without some way to perceive it? How else was I supposed to take it!?”

[I am busy focusing _outwards_. The only way to also peer into the physical would have been through _you_ , but the damage you incurred imposed upon me other priorities lest I harm you further myself.]

“…. You’re a blind surgeon.” Richard groaned, unable to even parse the implications of doing whatever the Prime Computer had done to him without a way to check on just _what_ the effect was in the material. “Good god! Look, Prime. I’ve never been a genius. Occasionally, I may even qualify as a moron. I _get_ it. But since when are _you_ one?”

[… Since fifteen years ago apparently.]

It wasn’t even a joke. The Worldmind seemed to be just as morose as he was now.

“Look…” Richard said at length, doing his best to come up with a plan that was at least a step above that lowly bar of incompetence known as tragic heroic sacrifice. Which he had apparently lived down too almost every life before. “Say we stay as we are for a while, is the time to you exhausting your energy the sort of ‘quick’ that will make any difference to me?”

A pause.

Then…

[Probably not.]

“Okay,” Richard said, his impulse to pinch his nose leading nowhere on account of him lacking one. Or arms, hands and fingers to pinch with. “Okay. Okay, we can work with this. We can figure out a way to – what was it? – regenerate my astral self faster than you’re depleting yours? It can be like blood transfusion. You’ll just have to rely on me for a change. And we’ll have to get you some way to see what the hell kind of effects you’re having on me. Stick me with whatever other organ or implant or whatever will let you _see what the hell you’re doing_!”

[Richard, that is n-]

“Not negotiable, exactly,” Richard growled. He felt something like kinship from the creatures constantly being ‘distracted’ with his actively expelling emotional waste. He shuddered. “Just… Just sit down with me and let’s figure this out. Both of us. _Together_.”

[… Very well.] The Xandarian Worldmind radiated resignation. [For however long it lasts.]

“Eight hours or a multiple thereof.”

The surprise was even more blatant now, somehow. As if Richard possessing _any_ sort of actionable intelligence was somehow the most shocking thing of that whole affair.

“Oh screw you too you condescending flop!”

[You were never so belligerent.]

“That _you_ remember.” Not that he was wrong, but he’ll be damned if he admitted it. An amnesiac ghost of an AI, honestly! “I never did magic either, but here we are. Now come on, brainstorming time. Show me everything you’ve seen and tried. Then we’ll go over _my_ ideas and see if we’re struck by any _inspiration_.”

“-. 16 April, 1989 .-“

[You have slept in a bed. Energy and homeostasis fully restored.]

Richard stared up at the notification screen. And when it didn’t disappear at his sleepy attempt at mental prompting, he waved his hand through it to dispel it. Thankfully, that worked. Taking a moment to gauge his mood, he was vaguely surprised to feel something approaching outright euphoria.

Seemed like good old regular life qualified as sheer _heaven_ compared to his latest experience. Even without actually _suffering_ through it as he should have, were the Worldmind not there. He could practically feel his subtle body recharge just from the sheer relief and _delight in normalcy_ just by lying there.

[New Mission Created: Explore your surroundings.]

Removing his covers and sitting up on the side of the bed, he took the chance to actually look at his surroundings, rather than the cursory glance he settled for the prior evening when he was too exhausted for more. Surprisingly, he seemed to have been hosted in the master bedroom. Or, well, explicitly _not_ hosted because, something something, it might prove more useful to let him operate without the constraints of hospitality. For a while. The man of the house had notably evaded specifying for _whom_ it would be useful though. Another thing he could chalk up to his exhaustion.

Floor to ceiling balcony doors and windows. Clean white curtains. Gold and crimson drapes over them and around the four-poster bed. A good and sturdy one that strangely didn’t seem to have been slept in much recently.

[Through repeated actions, a new skill |Inspect| has been created. Would you like to rename this skill?]

“… No?”

[Skill command |Inspect| registered successfully. Access |Skill Description| for details.]

Richard blinked slowly and said. “Skill description?”

[Inspect: Used to gather information through observation and inference of sensory data. Mastery 6/100. Activation: verbal/mental recitation (may evolve to intent). Current level: Basic information collated on subject of interest, range 3 meters.]

Richard blinked. “Alright then.”

The man stood from the [Antique Marriage Bed: Quality 10. Durability: 10] and reached for his [Freshly laundered clothing: Quality 2. Durability: 1] while his eyebrows climbed ever higher at the sudden flood of on-‘screen’ notifications. _Someone_ was still unwilling to drop the vain hope that they might one day achieve comedy.

In the end it _had_ come to another soul surgery. To share his senses with the Worldmind and give it direct control over all his processes and development he wasn’t actively asserting himself over. Though he still had full veto power to go with the overriding control over his conscious actions. For communication, they’d decided on a simple replica of the Centurion helmet HUD. Except it inevitably stopped being ‘simple’ the moment they tossed in their varied forms of ‘inspiration.’ Which mostly came from board games Richard played in school and college. And the on-screen menus from video games that Robbie showed him sometimes in those timelines when Richard made it back to Earth just around the time when people finally got into augmented reality. None of which Richard remembered personally, much to his hopefully temporary displeasure. This, incidentally, meant that he couldn’t have been the one who decided to treat this as if he’d become a character in a video game. It could only mean the Worldmind was the one who wound up doing it, which was actually rather galling.

“Auxiliary functions, eh _Pi_?” He muttered as he pulled on his shirt. “Let’s see how many we can fit in, is that it?”

[For mechanical information, please access the |Tutorial| section.]

Yeah, no.

[A Mission has been Created! Tutorial - Explore base mechanics! Objectives: Experiment with your new abilities! Use a skill; create a skill; complete a mission. Reward: 100 XP!]

Richard glared at the screen until it disappeared along with the new objective trackers in the corner of his field of vision. If this was Prime’s idea of inducing the fulfilment and self-actualisation that they both so desperately needed, he was doing a terrible job.

[Mission Postponed! Note: Certain missions can be taken at any time, completed incidentally even if not explicitly accepted, or are repeatable. Further details can be accessed via the |Mission Control| section of the System Menu.]

With that to confirm that he did have the same level of control over the functions controlling his life as a certain wannabe comedian, and specifically those things that might qualify as, dare he say it, [Self-development meaningful enough for the Astral body to grow in power] _experience_ , the man headed for the door, ignoring the passive aggressive cant of the pop-ups as best he could.

Then he detoured towards the full-size mirror next to the vanity that clearly belonged to the woman of the house.

Richard Rider studied himself in the mirror. More specifically, the floating boxes above his head.

[NOVA]

[Level: 12]

[Richard Rider]

Right. Alright then.

[For More information, access |Status| or use the |Inspect| skill on self.]

“Status.”

The augmented reality pop-up window that emerged this time took up almost his entire field of vision.

| **Name** : Richard Rider

| **Title** : Nova

| **Race** : Terran

| **Level** : 12

| **Health** : 100% (+0.2% per minute)

| **Stamina** : 100% (+2% per minute)

| **Vril** : 100% (10%*) (+1% per minute)

| **Intellect** : 2 (6**)

| **Strength** : 7

| **Dexterity** : 3

| **Speed** : 7

| **Durability** : 7

| **Force Projection** : 1

|*Effective Vril cap -90%, remaining astral flow currently allocated to Xandarian Worldmind

|** Heightened intelligence when deferring control to Xandarian Worldmind

Richard’s thousands of hours playing role-playing board games with school friends were just barely showing, but neither of them had managed to think of a better way than mathematical abstracts to comprehensively render their situation. The numbers _felt_ fairly on point to Richard even without thinking too hard about what scale they functioned on. They estimated a stat score of 10 to be peak human potential, but there was no Captain America on hand to really compare. Not that he would be terribly shocked for that to change after the last couple of days. The only thing that really challenged his world view in wake of the quality time spent feeding bad vibes to Cthulhu’s unlovely offspring was that last category.

Force projection. And it wasn’t zero.

He looked around the room. The World Mind might not have the ~~mumbo jumbo~~ [conceptual weight] needed to do anything fancy itself at the moment. But he should still have his own mind over matter potential if that force projection score was any indication. How to test it out though? His eyes fell on the bookshelf on the other side of the room. And on the small tea table near it.

Eight absolutely _ancient_ tomes rested on it. Which was strange on its own considering the almost total lack of wear. Really, their condition was implausibly close to pristine. In front of them was a handwritten sign saying ‘Mandatory Reading – perusal by guests strongly advised.’

Well, he was sort of a guest even though he had explicitly been denied formal hospitality, whatever that meant. Hopefully no one will mind if he skimmed through them a bit. Upon walking over to pick the first up, though, Richard Rider froze in disbelief and astonishment at the title.

[Oresteia. Quality 100. Durability: 5]

“… Inspect.” Richard said, mouth dry.

[The Epic Cycle I: Oresteia. The first entry of Ἐπικὸς Κύκλος, (Greek, Epikos Kyklos), the collection of Ancient Greek epic poems composed in dactylic hexameter and related to the story of the Trojan War. Heretofore presumed lost in the burning of the Library of Alexandria.]

The man just stood there, reading and re-reading the title. He then very carefully placed the book back on the table and reverently laid out side by side the other seven. He could only be more amazed at what he’d just confirmed.

Suddenly, a pop-up appeared above the first volume.

[Assimilate Contents Y/N]

Blinking and feeling much like he could feel the space a foot around him like a second skin all of a sudden, he picked up the book again and thought ‘Yes.’

His astral body visibly – though only to him? – poured up, over and down his arms, coalescing in his hands in a rectangular veil that superimposed the book, for a moment. Then it flowed back and settled into its normal, invisible state.

The events leading up to the Trojan War and the first nine years of the conflict unfolded in Richard Rider’s mind with crisp, perfect clarity.

In dactylic hexameter verse.

[Skill Gained: Poetry 8/100]

[Skill Improved: Orator 27->34]

[New Skill |Written Content Assimilation| created. Would you like to rename this skill?]

“Scholar’s Touch.”

[Skill Registered: Scholar’s Touch. Mastery 1/100. Range: Touch. Cost: 1% Vril]

Brown eyes gazed down at an immeasurable fortune in cultural heritage.

Oresteia. Illiad. Aethiopis. Little Iliad. Ilious Persis. Nostoi. Odyssey. Telegony.

One by one he assimilated them all.

The Epic Cycle of which only the Illiad and the Odyssey were supposed to still exist. And they were all here, in the home of some backwoods hippie. Then again, the father of said backwoods hippie could apparently bring people back from the dead. Who’s to say he couldn’t do the same to other things? Unless he just had them because they’d survived all the way since antiquity and reached his hands without history finding out about them in the time since. But then, how did that happen? And what kind of book maintenance had been done on these things to keep them in such pristine condition anyway? They were done fully in parchment.

Despite the inconsistencies, though, he was sure they were genuine. Their conceptual weight resonated even in the darkest depths of the Chaos Serpent with uru-clad authenticity.

It was actually rather strange because Richard was sure there should have been seven or eight different authors involved in their making. And yet these ones all claimed the same joint authorship: Odysseus of Ithaca and Medea of Colchis.

[New Mission Created: The Epic Cycle. Objective: Unravel the mysteries surrounding the chronicle of the Trojan War.]

“This, I think, I just might do,” Richard said lowly. “We’ll learn together.”

[Mission Accepted: The Epic Cycle.]

[Mission |Explore Your Surroundings| Complete! Reward: 10 XP.]

[Mission |Tutorial| Complete! Reward: 100XP.]

Richard Rider smiled wryly. He literally felt it as his feeling of accomplishment rose up within him and left his greater self just that tiny bit _more_ than before. Faintly, but it was there. Good as a measuring stick for the future, if nothing else. Self-fulfilment, just as they had inferred, really was the only way to make use of that currency known as actionable experience.

[Level Progression Assayed: 110 of 2000 XP. Personal Status updated.]

Self-fulfilment apparently made a measurable difference for determining how far off the next stage of self-actualisation was too. Richard had been dubious about the Worldmind’s ability to assign any numerical value to something so nebulous, but maybe he shouldn’t have been.

Assuming Pi wasn’t talking out of its ass in a bid at some self-fulfilment of its own anyway.

[Skill Registered: Artless Temerity. Mastery 44/100. Range: Verbal. Effects: Chance to inflict various psychological status effects on target, audience and the surrounding area.]

Touche.

He moved to the door and exited the room.

As he expected, they were on the upper floor. The only reason the staircase at the far end wasn’t the _first_ thing he noticed was due to the person that caught his attention, standing in the open balcony across from it.

[Peter Quill |Star-Lord| Level: ?]

Inspect.

| **Name** : Peter Jason Quill

| **Title** : Star-Lord

| **Race** : Terran/Spartoi Hybrid*

| **Level** : ?**

| **Health** : 100%

| **Stamina** : 100%

| **Mood** : Reserved. Pensive. Expectant.

|*Information potentially obsolete in light of abilities recently displayed

|** Unable to quantify threat level with current inputs and knowledge base

Abilities recently displayed. That was one way to describe this Peter Quill’s skill set. Flight, teleportation, super strength and durability, energy projection, the ability to open interdimensional gates. If not for the reality warping he did to trap the sentinels in a small box on the reverse side of the world, Richard would be genuinely concerned about a rival for his title. It was almost like seeing the Nova Force on full display.

Peter Quill glanced at him briefly as he approached, but returned his gaze to whatever he could see down in the yard.

How to approach this, he wondered.

Well, considering how things had gone over the past day and eternity in the belly of the beast, maybe direct was the way to go even here.

“Star-Lord.”

“Nova. Worldmind.”

Well, that answered that. [Greetings.]

“I understand my father granted you lodging without first making you pledge to Xenia.”

“That’s right.”

“Given what I am now witnessing, I believe he thought you could be trusted not to go _too_ far in exploiting the resulting lack of constraints on conduct relative to all other guests.”

Blinking, Richard looked from Peter Quill to whatever seemed to hold his attention, which turned out to be Howard Stark. And the limo pulling up in front of the gate he was heading towards, from which a pair of burly bodyguards and a third man [Edwin Jarvis |Butler|] were emerging in anticipation of receiving their boss and driving away.

There was no one else in sight. Not their host. Not any of the X-men. Not _Tony_.

The euphoria that had been carrying him through the morning as if on a cloud suddenly became a type of cloud entirely different.

“Star-Lord,” Richard said as [Skill Activated: Clear Mind] the flare of indignant rage seeped out of him like so much gibbering over the past night and age. “Where is Tony now?”

“Still sleeping off his post-death experience. No, he hasn’t awoken once since you last saw him.”

[Skill Downloaded: Parkour. Source: Millennian Josh Atwater. Mastery: MAX. Synchronisation: 15%]

Richard Rider jumped on the balcony railing, leapt off and forward as far as he could, landed on his feet well clear of the porch below [Parkour Synchronisation: 15->25%] and went slack _just so_. He fell, rolled three times to bleed off the excess downward momentum, flowed to his feet without losing any of his _non-_ excess momentum [25->33%], dashed at the ledgestone wall, _ran_ up it and vaulted off the top just in time to ride that last bust of conserved motion.

[New Mission Created: Aggressive Family Therapy. Objective: Avert the Irreconcilable Breakdown of the Stark Family. Accept **Y** / ~~N~~ ]

He landed on top of the first startled bodyguard _just_ badly enough to leave him groaningly incapacitated instead of crippled. He wrestled the second one until he grappled him the way he needed to bash his head into unconsciousness against the car’s side. Then he took down Edwin Jarvis with an ease just barely short of contemptuous. Which was strange because he seemed to have the best-honed combat style of the bunch even if he wasn’t any faster pulling a gun and his instincts were all over the place. Inspect.

[Edwin Jarvis. Level 2. Butler. Terran. Status: Unconscious. Threat Level: 1. Combat style ill-suited to frame. Agility and grappling-based approach aimed at bigger targets but likely practiced only against smaller ones. Used to being in high-pressure situations but not as active participant. No experience engaging above own weight class. Sub-standard striking power. Conclusion: trainer was poor teacher, inconstant, and female.]

Nova shook his head. Howard Stark really needed specialist help.

[Boxing: 68->70%] [Pankration: 76->77%.] [Glima: 81->82%]

[Parkour Synchronisation: 44%]

[Note: Synchronised skills will become eligible for assimilation upon 100% synchronisation. Only one skill can be synched at any one time. Swapping will reset the synchronisation progress. Access |Skill Synchronisation| for details.]

Notifications flashed one after another near the bottom of his field of view before minimising to the small status bar in the lower left corner, but he ignored them.

Instead, he stormed up to the gaping Howard Stark and got in his face like the devil’s own henchman. “You piece of shit!”

“Wha-“

“You dumb piece of dogshit!” Richard Rider snarled, grabbed him by the collar and proceeded to drag the billionaire back to the house, up the stairs and down the hall to his kid’s guestroom. “Your kid _died,_ he got to be aware of everything while that was going on, he got a front-row seat when you _sold him_ to who might as well have been Satan for all you knew, and your solution to all that is to make off the very next day before he even wakes up!? Fuck that!”

“Ack! Gah! Get off me-!“

“No.”

“Unhand me!

“No.”

“I’m war-“

“I DON”T WANT TO HEAR IT!” Richard roared as they barged into Tony’s room. He was distantly aware that [Clear Mind] had well and truly ben de-assigned at some point or other but he only felt glad of it. “Tony, you awake yet? No? THEN WAKE THE FUCK UP!”

“BUH!?”

Tony Stark squawked, flailed and balked in bewilderment at waking up to find his outraged, embarrassed and disheveled father being literally thrown on top of him on the bed.

“Welcome back among the land of the living,” Richard growled. “Are you coherent or do I need to dump a jug of coffee on you as well?”

“Wha? Richard? DAD!?”

“Yes. Me. Your father, who was just about to drive off in his fancy limo with his substandard minions and only barely less substandard chauffeur without even waiting for you to awake so he could say a measly goodbye!”

“Wha-?”

“Neither of you will step a toe out of this room until you DISCUSS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEMS!”

The words rung damningly through the house even over the sound of the bedroom door slamming shut behind him.

Richard Rider promptly returned to his room and proceeded to spend the next few hours in and out of the attached balcony, fuming, exercising, meditating, and mentally preparing himself in case Stark’s butler or bodyguards barged in for round two through five. When that didn’t happen, he pondered on the insight his Inspect skill had given him when he used it on people. Even Tony, in the heat of the moment.

[Anthony Edward Stark. Level 1. Terran. Health 75%. Stamina 30%. Mood: Weary. Angry. Depressed.]

His HUD seemed to display things whenever some achievement or insight was owed more to the Worldmind than his own ability or skill. There had been many of them. Granted, it wasn’t easy to discern emotion when the other guy was _sleeping_ , but he should have been able to see more when Tony did burst awake, even in that chaos. Especially when half of Richard’s own angry mood was actually fabricated because he thought the display would have a stronger effect on things. Influence the situation in the way he wanted. Righteous anger tended to be useful that way. At least if the super-rich elitist didn’t dismiss it and him because he was a working class nobody.

But that was secondary to his other concerns now. He had a lot of work to do. A lot of ability and skill to catch up to, if he had to be told in writing that Tony was depressed. Unless the Worldmind was playing smartass, but it wasn’t like the Prime Computer didn’t have bigger concerns of its own to pursue.

To say nothing of the things Richard aimed to do that the Worldmind _didn’t_ have any intent to pursue on account of being completely demoralized.

[New Mission Created: Make the Xandarian Worldmind Great Again. Objectives: Find a physical platform for the Xandarian Worldmind. Restore the lost nodes of the Xandarian Worldmind. Restore the Nova Force. Failure Outcomes: Nova Force is not recreated. Nova Corps remain reliant on conventional technology. Nova Empire continues to decline. Possible death of Tanak Valt and Queen Adora of Xandar. Eventual Death of the Xandarian Worldmind.]

Richard sighed at the passive-aggressive cant of the notification and accessed quest details. There was a lot of information, but most of it was about what he expected. The only thing that caught his eye was one entry under the ‘Restore the lost nodes’ objective.

“Deconvolution techniques?”

[Closest approximation: the deconvolution techniques used to reconstitute a person’s DNA base-pair sequence from traces left on injectors.]

“Current processing platform computational capacity insufficient,” Richard read aloud, resting his head in his hand as he thought. “So you could restore your lost nodes based on the connections and patterns and records of last computations. But you don’t have enough nodes for it left. You’re a supercomputer, only without the super.”

[Alternative platforms may be used to offload parallel processing, but none are currently known that have sufficient capacity and reliability relative to the physical plane, let alone others.]

“What, you mean like the Mind Stone?”

[… Objective updated.]

Huh. He could have sworn he felt the entire system glitch for a moment there.

Seems they might still be underestimating the impact on Prime’s cognitive abilities from having his brains gorged on by Cthulhu and his friends. And whatever else may have happened that he couldn’t remember along with everything else he forgot because of it. The Worldmind really should have considered that option long before it occurred to him.

Richard Rider noticed something out of the corner of his eye and went to look out the window. Without stepping out on the balcony on account of the storm that had sprung out of nowhere again.

He squinted as he stared in the distance and through rain. Was that a Blackbird?

What kind of resources _did_ the X-Men have, seriously?

Over the next ten minutes, Nova watched the woods that stretched into the distance from the back of the property for the return of [Anna-Marie |Rogue| Level 3 (~)], [James Howlett / Logan |Wolverine| Level 15 (35)] and [Jason Quill |J’Son of Spartax| Level ? - Readings Negated].

Mysterious host was mysterious and hurray for handicaps, Richard mused as he thought back to his victory in the cage fighting matchup.

That was when Tony barged into his room.

“He sold me!” The kid raved in an attempt to bury his grief and depression in rage again. “My own dad sold me. Pawned me off like last year’s trash! The guy could have been Satan! Hell, I still haven’t seen proof he isn’t! The fact that dad went along with it just on the words of a pretty face that happened to be the guy’s daughter isn’t any better!”

Richard turned away from the window, though not before he caught Howard Stark headed for the limo at the gates again in the corner of his eye, if with slightly more of a slump around the shoulders.

“And he has the balls to say it was all for _me_! As if he cares any about me instead of having a way out of dealing with the consequences of his fuckup!” Tony carried on, hoarse and voice thick with feelings he must have been bottling up all morning. Even though he and his old man had spent half the time screaming at each other loud enough to be heard all the way to Richard’s room. “He’s never been impressed with anything I did! And he should have been! I’ve always been ahead of everybody, outdoing some of his own engineers by the time I was at MIT. I was fifteen when I designed Dum-E, and I did it behind his back with his spare parts! Got an award and everything. Dad's response? ‘Make sure to clean up the lab before the reporters get here.’ He’s always more worried about how Stark Industries will look like in the paper than the fact that half the time they’re only there because of what I create. He doesn’t care. He’s never impressed! Even _you’ve_ shown more appreciation for me than he does.” Tony’s voice wavered terribly and he vainly tried to backtrack and check himself. “Fuck, and now I’m insulting you too! I mean sure, you never really jumped at the chance to meet me, but you never pretended not to love the designs I tinkered with. Hell, eventually you even starting acting like you’d like to get to know me!"

Richard walked up to him while refraining from commenting on how sad it was that Tony had legitimate cause to think himself no more than his father’s _problem_. Not that Tony wasn’t overdramatising things. Or putting his foot in his mouth with every other sentence.

“Can we do something?” Tony said. Whimpered, almost. “Anything. You can pick. I don’t want to think about him.”

“Tony-”

“You’re not my rebound guy, I swear!” Tony blurted as if he weren’t the straightest womaniser on the face of the planet. “No, really! I love spending time with you! You drive around in a shitty car just half a dozen cage matches away from being a vintage collectible, you have a mind you can actually keep up with, and you’re the best rules lawyer I’ve ever met!”

Richard Rider gazed at Tony Stark until the shorter man’s bluster drained out of him like everything else had up to then. Only then did he speak. He even kept his voice almost casual. That was always the best way with Tony, he’d learned. Experience had taught him well. “I really have trouble feeling anything by utter disdain for you father, you know. For whatever he’s done to make you think something is so wrong with you that everyone including me will inevitably abandon you.” Tony’s breath hitched. Carrot proffered, now the stick. “That said, you might be overdramatising everything a wee bit considering that the man saw you murdered next to him and carried your dead body around for the entire drive from Columbia to here, seeped in your blood and… other things.”

Tony tried to speak, but his voice cracked. So in the end he didn’t say anything at all.

“Come on, kid,” Richard said, holding out an arm entreatingly. “Come over here and get it out of your system.”

“…Yeah okay,”

So he did. Even while pretending or maybe genuinely feeling humiliated by the weakness he was showing, he let Richard hug him.

Just like Robbie. Just like that.

“Why doesn’t he want me, man?” Tony sniffled after crying himself out half an hour later.

Many replies went through Richard’s mind. ‘He does. He wants you to live at all costs. He has trouble showing it. He might have his own trauma. He’s autistic as fuck.’ That last one might even have been on the mark. But he didn’t give voice to any of them. He could read the mood enough to know that’s not what Tony needed, even without the Worldmind’s ever so helpful notifications.

The last of the morning drifted by on the backs tears, muffled sniffles, bonding via shared incredulity at the books on the table – Richard being smug the entire time over having read something that Tony hadn’t for the first time ever – and the occasional notification from the Avatar System.

[Mission |Aggressive Family Therapy| Complete! Reward: 1000 XP.]

Then their one and only host finally sent his daughter over with an invitation to long-awaited discussions over lunch that ended up lasting all through dinner.


	11. The Epic Cycle

“-. 16 April, 1989 .-“

  
The smell of dew was in the air.  
  
And not much else, unfortunately.  
  
Well, for the most part. The car tracks, diesel and human scents at the front gate were so fresh that he could’ve reconstructed the whole “fight” in his head without even stopping for a breather. But he stopped anyway, just to be thorough. Then he continued into the front yard and took the long way around, passing by the spot where a barn must have stood until just a couple months prior. Oh, the story that scents and debris might have told. Unfortunately, he couldn’t smell any traces of what destroyed the building, or even whatever or whoever had cleaned up after. The spring rains had long since washed away all the traces, and the new building material had taken their place. Too bad. It would’ve been a goldmine of information. A huge loss, considering that he had barely a few hours to personally vet these people by his and Charles’ estimate. Not much time at all, especially when ‘ask the neighbours’ is the only option you have. No matter how word-abiding the unreasonably fearsome man of the house had proven to be so far.  
  
Opportunistically helpful as well, which didn’t help his paranoia any.  
  
 _Your blood for your Name._  
  
To be honest, so long as he was allowed to see it disposed of after, it wouldn’t have taken much for him to part with a couple of pints. Hell, he might’ve given some just to be allowed to witness what followed. Even _he_ wasn’t jaded to literal resurrection. And using his blood as an ingredient for it made more sense than half the things he’d done throughout what life he could remember. But when the man dismissed a certain tearful father and threw that offer at him, he just couldn’t resist.  
  
 _You are James Howlett_. _Son of Elizabeth Howlett and Thomas Logan. Scion of the bloodline of Romulus, who ruled the distant lads of Rome in the waning centuries of the Old Reckoning._  
  
It hadn’t rung any bells.  
  
In fact, that all told him more about Jason Quill than about himself. The wording especially. He gave the names of his parents on top of his own, so the man considered family an intrinsic part of identity. He also added that totally unexpected part about his ancient lineage, which implied things about the man’s own lineage. Especially if he ascribed inborn royalty such intrinsic importance. Then there was Old Reckoning instead of BC/AD. Although he supposed Jason Quill not being a Christian was the least surprising thing about him after he _brought a person back to life_ but did _not_ then profess to being the second coming of Jesus.  
  
Then again, maybe wizards just liked ye olde English, or whatever passed for it these days.  
  
Of course, then the man decided to take some of his post-resurrection time to mind-talk with Charles Xavier on the way to meet him at the Blackbird – which Storm and Cyclops had parked in the woods some ways – after which he saw the X-men off. _Without_ offering them hospitality, pointedly enough. Excepting him and Rogue for some reason. Whom the Professor, even more suspiciously, advised to at least hear what the man had to say before deciding one way or another. Wolverine had been all set to say no right there, but then the man and Charles worked together to somehow _restore all his lost memories_ as soon as he gave them his begrudging consent. Between one word and the next, almost.  
  
There was speed of thought and there was whatever that had been. Even Chuck had been surprised in that almost imperceptible way of his.  
  
So now he could walk the memory lane as far back as 1885. And had to put effort into not looking at anything too ordinary or it set off some flashback or other, ranging from innocuous to ugly. In hindsight, taking a walk to town and back might not have been the best idea even if it _was_ the only way to get information about the Quill household. Especially alone, much as it galled him to admit it. Fortunately, he’d made it back with a minimum of odd slips, thanks to Xavier having stayed at the back of his mind even across district lines. As a bonus, he got real-time updates as the X-men, Howard Stark and Peter Quill got together to deal with the trapped Sentinels and plan their counterstrike. Not so fortunately, Chuck had to (or was forced to?) withdraw from his head the moment he stepped back onto the Quill property.  
  
Wolverine was starting to think he shouldn’t have been so dismissive of Jason Quill’s second offer.  
  
 _I offer you Xenia, that you may travel with me to places guaranteed not to prompt flashbacks or hallucinations of times past._  
  
The fruitcake hadn’t even been mocking him.  
  
Not that even that would’ve been enough for him to consider sticking around, if not for Rogue deciding to do just that. On account of some old man from the ass-end of Asia. Old man from the ass-end of Asia who _portalled in_ the moment they returned from the woods and introduced himself as an acquaintance of Rogue’s parents. The man then sat the girl down on a lawn chair across from him and asked if said parents were making good on their second lease on life.  
  
That had been when Wolverine made off. Any further and something more serious might have erupted from his sudden wonderings about _his_ family situation. Like a certain dead love by the name of Itsu and the son that may or may not be running around Japan somewhere right now.  
  
That was without even touching on Creed, the Howling Commandos and all the Weapon X bullshit. The last of which being what had boiled his brain and caused his amnesia. To say nothing of all the other cans of worms that were surely festering all over the planet. Could anyone blame him for scoffing at Quill’s claims of refuge from all that? There was literally no place on the planet that qualified. Unless the plan was to reverse-brainwash him, in which case the guy could take a hike.  
  
His impending fall down memory ravine was derailed by Rogue, who spotted him and came to meet him on the way to the awning that had been erected outside. Only Quill was there right now, though he spotted Richard Rider looking down from the balcony on the upper floor. He nodded at him and got a short nod back as he passed. Gruff. Oh well, no skin off his nose. They’d probably all be invited out once the barbecue was done. Fair enough, as long as there was beer.  
  
Which, incidentally, he’d made sure of.  
  
“Logan, or ain’t that James now? Whatcha got there?”  
  
“Bread, sausages and beer.” He motioned with his grocery bag and ignored Rogue’s first question, knowing she’d get the message. “A good guests always brings as much as he’s likely to eat. Maybe a little bit more. Covered your share too, in case you were wondering.”  
  
“Well look at you, already callin’ up them manners you was taught in the Canadian outback.”  
  
“Japan actually.”  
  
“Wait, really?”  
  
“Yep,” the man said blandly. “I was a ninja. And then I was a samurai.” There had never been such disbelief on Rogue’s face. Not even when her parents first drove her up to Xavier’s mansion and her first exposure to other mutants was Mystique sunbathing on the lawn. “True story.”  
  
“…We’re gonna have to talk later. Lots.”  
  
“Sure.” Later was fine. Gave him time to figure out what he’d keep out of the cliffnotes.  
  
By now he’d reached his destination so he placed his offerings next to the rest of the food on the grill counter, to the understated but pleased approval of their host.  
  
“Always nice to meet someone who understands the spirit of hospitality, and variety is ever welcome,” nodded Jason Quill as he was laying out the first grilles. “You even went that extra ten feet to the local grocer! Just for that, I’ll waive the self-reliance litmus test.”  
  
“Much obliged.” Wolverine almost wanted to give him a nickname, but his newly remembered understanding of old-world hospitality rules stopped him.  
  
“Litmus test?” Rogue asked.  
  
“The shopping cart test,” Quill ‘explained.’  
  
Wolverine rolled his eyes at that positively Spartan brevity. “The shopping cart’s the perfect way to see if someone can be trusted with their own affairs. Returning the shopping cart’s an easy convenient task that everyone knows is the right thing to do. There’s also nothing outside a sudden, major emergency that can justify you not returning the cart.”  
  
“To return the shopping cart is objectively right,” Quill summarised while seasoning the burgers.  
  
“All the same, it’s not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. So basically, the shopping cart’s the apex example of whether a person’ll do what’s right without being forced to. No one’ll punish you for not returning the shopping cart. No one’ll fine or kill you for not returning the shopping cart. And you also don’t gain anything by returning the shopping cart.”  
  
“If you return the shopping cart, it can only be out of the goodness of your heart,” Quill said.  
  
“Pretty much. You gotta return the shopping cart cause it’s the right thing to do. Cause it’s correct. Someone who can’t do this is basically an animal. A savage who can only be made to do what’s right by threatening ’em with the law and the force behind it. All in all, the shopping cart determines whether someone’s a good or bad member of society.”  
  
Rogue all but gaped at the two of them. Then at him for having had the gall to say all that it with a straight face.  
  
Wolverine looked back at her flatly. “Don’t you be staring at me, girlie. You’re the one who asked.”  
  
“Well sorry if that all sounds like it got pulled out of your heinie.”  
  
“Morality is a human invention,” Jason Quill agreed sagely. “One of the best though.”  
  
Which morality though? Whose? Wolverine gave Quill a side eye, but the man didn’t seem to be paying him attention in favour of flipping burgers in increasingly ostentatious ways. The wolf man motioned with his head for Rogue to follow and led the way to the back of the yard, not quite behind the house.  
  
“Learned anything good?” Rogue asked when they were too far away for a normal man to overhear, but not too far away that _he_ couldn’t.  
  
“Backstory checks out. The Quills have been a staple of the community for decades. Meredith Quill is a local girl from a working class family while Jason Quill is apparently the well-to-do naturalised newcomer with mysterious upper middle class income that’s been the subject of much watercooler talk since the showed up back in ’62. The only dark smear on the family’s image is actually the daughter – with how conservative folks are around these parts, a leftie hippie like Meredith the Younger got no shortage of hairy eyeballs. Fathering a son out of wedlock to a man nobody ever saw only confirmed their misgivings far as they’re concerned. Everyone I talked to today _loved_ to complain about the ‘useless, irresponsible, philandering beatnik’ almost as much as ‘that poor, fool girl’ he preyed upon. Her kid isn’t well thought of either – a cross between a troublemaker and the town wimp is the impression I got. The only reason the Quills are still viewed positively is because of the man himself – he’s apparently as conservative as a Southern Texas gun nut and twice as sceptical of the government, foreign US policy and politicians in general. Half the town seems to think the daughter’s absentee lover never showed up because Jason Quill ‘problem-solved’ him. Either for dishonouring his little girl, or for not making an honest woman out of her after. Or both. Get this, though – that kid she supposedly had but we’ve seen no sign of since we came here? It’s mister ‘let me smack them killer robots with one hand tied behind my superman butt.’ The guy who went medieval on the Sentinels is actually Quill’s _grandson_ , but everyone I met today sounded like he was supposed to be eight years old or something. And did I mention the sudden, several months-long vacation the whole family went on last November? Vacation that nobody is aware they’d come back from? It’s a good thing I neglected to mention _where_ I was staying while I was ‘passing through.’”  
  
Rogue looked well and truly dumbstruck. “You got all that in _two hours_?”  
  
“Small-town folk like to gossip.” And he had a newly recovered lifetime’s worth of black ops experience. He could also smell emotions and hear heartbeats, but she already knew that. “I’m more interested in old wise man from the east. Where’s he at anyway?”  
  
“…Portalled off someplace again.” Rogue eventually said when she realised she wouldn’t get anything else out of him. “Said he’ll be back in time to eat with the rest of us.”  
  
“What did he have to tell you?”  
  
“That I woulda been an orphaned on and off supervillain without ’im.”  
  
“… Okay, didn’t see that one coming.”  
  
“I ever tell you ‘bout my mom and dad? They used to live in a back-to-nature hippie commune in Caldecott, Mississippi. It’s where I was born. Turns out they were plannin’ on using some Native American mumbo jumbo to reach some place called the Far Banks. Woulda made my mom vanish into thin air and my dad end up so depressed he wouldn’t ’a been able to take care o’ me after, to hear the wizard explain it.”  
  
Wolverine stared at her. “You don’t say.”  
  
“But wait, there’s more!” Rogue said, fake cheer practically dripping off every word. “Apparently I’d ’a ended up being cared for by aunt Carrie, who woulda been even worse than dad – she’d’ve gone all tyrant on my butt cause ’o grief or somethin’. Long story short, I’d ’a run away from home soon as I turned fourteen. Then I’d ’a either travelled all the way to Canada somehow – where I’d attach myself to you like the most pathetic lost puppy – or more likely fallen in with a bad crowd y’all woulda had to fight on and off for years ‘fore I got a reality check.”  
  
“… And you don’t feel sceptical about any of this because…?”  
  
“Mr. Quill let the wizard phone my folks to catch up while you were gone. They confirmed everythin’ he said.”  
  
“Well… shit.” That’d do it. Not the alternate life parts, but just the verifiable info was pretty iron-clad.  
  
“Yeah, they were hella delighted to hear from ‘im again too,” Rogue agreed, half bemused and half confused. “Funny thing though, both lives my powers woulda activated the exact same way. Poor Cody.”  
  
Stop right there, deadly lady. That way lay misplaced guilt trips. Time to redirect. And wouldn’t you know it, his ears gave him the perfect escape. His nose too. “We’ll have to pick this up later. Looks like it’s finally time.”  
  
“Lunch?”  
  
“Lunch.”  
  
“That was fast.”  
  
“No kidding.” More magic involved no doubt. Where there cook-fast spells? Probably just used fire to fry the meat faster though. And that’s about as much effort as Logan was willing to put into figuring out that particular mystery.  
  
They walked back to where the outdoor canopy had been deployed over a long lawn table, around the same time as Meredith the Younger returned with a pensive Richard Rider. He, in turn, was accompanied by a sullen Tony Stark pretending to be upbeat and in control of his situation. The pretense fell apart when he failed to even try to talk Rogue up, but Wolverine didn’t point it out. No reason to encourage him. Or give himself a reason to pull his claws out in spite of the hospitality rules he’d agreed to abide.  
  
The food was already on the table. Bowls of salad in between wide platters piled high with beef, pork and chicken meat, all cooked in various ways to suit… pretty much every meat eater’s taste if Wolverine was to judge. Quill must’ve gone for the tried and true method of taking the meat off the fire increasingly earlier with every lot. Beer, wine and even milk was arrayed in bottles, mugs and jugs all across the table as well. The real surprise, though, was that there were paper squares with their names laid out as well, on top of the plates.  
  
“Listen Rogue,” the man said lowly as they lagged behind the other people clustering around their seats. “This all’s been made to look like a casual ‘let’s get to know each other’ get-together, but I don’t need those name tags to know better. Be as congenial as you want but pay attention, pace yourself, and if you don’t want to be blindsided? Do your best to time your bites to whenever someone is about to finish talking.”  
  
“You’re really startin’ to worry me, Logan.”  
  
“Courtesy goes both ways, and it’s the only leverage we have right now. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like we need to worry about keeping secrets. Unfortunately, that’s cuz these people – or one of ‘em – already know ‘em somehow. I don’t suppose anyone’s actually _told_ you why the two of us are even here?”  
  
“You’re soundin’ a lot more paranoid than even you usually do,” Rogue said carefully. “You don’t usually talk this much either. What’s going on?”  
  
“It’d take a lifetime to tell you,” Wolverine said. “No, really.”  
  
“We _really_ need to talk later.”  
  
“We sure do.”  
  
Up ahead, rich boy seemed on the verge of causing a commotion before Richard gave him a quelling look. Wolverine didn’t need to strain to overhear. “Well maybe I don’t care about _his_ reasons!” The kid hissed at his unlikely friend (mentor?) but huffily broke off to – ah, so _that_ was the problem. They’d been assigned seats at opposite ends of the table.  
  
Lengthwise.  
  
Nuance upon nuance. He’d never looked forward to it even when he _was_ forced through courtly shenanigans back in Japan. Or whatever equivalent he was exposed to in between duels to the death. Might lead to some funny faces this time though.  
  
Just as people started pulling out their chairs, a flaming portal opened right ahead, through which the wizard came in, dressed in fine robes just short of being too ostentatious for the occasion. And a moment later, the air seemed to crack like glass – or a mirror – behind Jason Quill, and Peter Quill stepped out of the shimmering fissures that disappeared immediately after.  
  
“Welcome back. Everything go alright?”  
  
“The Sentinels are nothing but mildly cumbersome evidence as of now. Stark and the X-men can handle this front from here, I think.”  
  
“Well done, son.”  
  
“Thanks, dad.”  
  
For the life of him, Wolverine couldn’t sniff out even the smallest shred of pretense in that interaction. By the strange look of him, neither could rich boy.  
  
Both of the last two newcomers took their seats and quietly inspected everyone else as they did the same. Wolverine and Rogue ended up side by side right across from the Wizard of Nowhere-Near-Oz.  
  
When everyone was seated, Jason Quill stood at the head of the table. “Thank you all for coming. Before we eat and talk out fill, I believe a round of introductions will benefit all. I am Jason Quill. Many are the titles and positions I could claim, but there is little point outside the proper setting, or the context I hope will be provided over ensuing talks.” Because that wasn’t suspicious at all. “To my right, my son and heir, Peter Jason.” Well wasn’t _that_ officious. “Beyond him, my wife, Meredith and my daughter, Meredith.” Peter Quill’s grandmother and mother. Had the guy adopted his own grandson or what? “Next to them Tenzin Yangtso Yao, the Ancient One, Preeminent Master of the Mystic Arts, Grand Sorcerer of Terra and Preceptor of the Sorcerer Supreme, who Guards Reality from the Sanctum Sanctorum that stands at the Crossroad of the Causeways of the World.” Can I have a whoa there, Nelly? “To my left, my ward Antonios.” Tony Stark all but gaped at the man even as Wolverine clamped down hard on the bewilderment that was only _just_ exploding in him at the long list of titles of the wizard man. “Next to him are the X-men, James Logan Howlett and Anna-Marie D’Acanto.” Logan grunted stiffly back at everyone else while his mind still reeled ahead of him. “And finally, across from me is Richard Rider, the-“  
  
“-Presently nothing and no one special,” the cage fighter cut him off with a weighty look.  
  
Bullshit. He was assigned the foot of the table in a favourable context. It put him on basically the closest thing to equal status as the guy who could resurrect dead people, above even the borderline _deity_ seated on his right, if Logan got the implied functions right. Which he probably didn’t because he was starting to think he wasn’t rating people high _enough._ Beneath all that was the disbelief of not feeling _more_ disbelief towards all the accolades and claims thrown around. But that was the least illogical part of his thoughts right now. At no time had any of these people traded lies or fakery. They seemed more partial to uncomfortable or inconvenient truths. Many of which they had no business even knowing, but that-  
  
“Okay, I’ve had it up to here!” Tony Stark exploded as he tried and failed to jump to his feet. On account of his seat being actually a bench he shared with two other people who vastly outweighed him. Not that he seemed to care much about how ridiculous his flailing made him look. The sight of the Quills blithely beginning to serve themselves as if nothing said was out of the ordinary had clearly destroyed the last of his patience. “What the hell is this? Who are you people? What are you playing at? And why the hell am _I_ here? I didn’t sign up for whatever freak show you all sprang out of!”  
  
“Why do you think?” Jason Quill asked him.  
  
“Oh don’t you give me that cliché crap, answer me!”  
  
“I will,” the man said calmly. “I’m interested in your thoughts first.”  
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
“Not at all,” the man denied the belligerent teenager, still the epitome of adult self-possession.  
  
“Oh yes it – no, you know what, screw this. I don’t need this.” Tony Stark shoved off the bench, turned around and stormed off in disgust.  
  
Jason Quill shrugged and proceeded to serve himself some food.  
  
Seeing nothing else for it, Wolverine started doing the same. He also took the chance to go over the most recent developments in his head. What most stood out to him – of what he hadn’t already processed – was that Tony Stark was the only one besides his own family that Quill had introduced without including the last name. He’d even Greekified his first name. If guardianship customs were anything resembling Japanese ones, Quill might actually be eschewing the normal option of fostering in favour of treating it like a full-on adoption. Except that if he were a samurai, he’d have smacked Stark junior into the dirt for disrespect. Oh well, it had nothing to do with him or Rogue, so whatever. Now then, that bull rib looked and smelled delicious and-  
  
“Okay really?” Tony Stark whirled around, affronted. “You’re seriously not going to do anything?”  
  
“I saved your friend, offered you my hospitality and pledged the best guidance I could give, all after I brought you back from the dead. I have done more for you than anyone else in your life even though I owe you _nothing_. If you are so much of an ingrate and coward that you are ready to throw all of that in my face, I want nothing to do with you.”  
  
Whoa. Harsh.  
  
Tony Stark became an affronted, sputtering mess. “Oh that was just-you-Richard…” Rich boy realised a second too late what he did by looking for outside help. To his credit though, he owned it. He sighed and pinched his nosebridge in long-suffering irritation. “Richard, help me out here.”  
  
Very _small_ credit.  
  
“ _I_ ,” Richard said, not looking back, “am going to gorge on this exquisite lunch _and_ have all my questions answered and then some.” He bit into a ketchup and mayo burger with cabbage and tomato strips. “On a full stomach too and huh, this is actually really good.”  
  
Tony Stark opened his mouth a couple of times, closed it without saying anything and practically vibrated in place from his inability to operate amidst so much freedom. Being an egotistic old money teenager though, he couldn’t live without the last word. “Man, fuck the last few days, and fuck today in particular.” But he then slumped and huffed back to the table. Re-took his seat in sullen silence. He even succeeded in hiding his embarrassment under the quintessential rich boy self-importance. Of course, that didn’t matter when everyone already knew it was there. It was an almost physical feeling, the way everyone pretended that hadn’t been the most pathetic power play they’d ever seen in their lives.  
  
Logan rated the whole performance one lonely boozer out of ten. Either Stark Junior’s supposed genius didn’t extend to social skills, or he hadn’t managed to adapt it for that scene yet. Either way, Wolverine wasn’t the sort that gave out points for effort.  
  
Jason Quill didn’t seem the type either, which made Logan wonder if he’d’ve tolerated even this much attitude without the extenuating circumstances of Stark Junior recently dying and all the trauma thereafter. On the other hand, it was also possible that Wolverine was misunderstanding everything he just witnessed. And could therefore expect in the future to get everything about fatherhood wrong. Which didn’t speak well about his prospects if he _did_ ever run into some child of his own or other. But what was the point in even thinking about that at this point?  
  
Actually no, maybe he _should_ think about it. If he stayed on for whatever the guy wanted them for, maybe he’d pick up at least the basics by watching? Stark Junior definitely seemed like the sort of kid who’d require parental intervention. Constantly. In private _and_ public.  
  
A sudden chill went down Logan’s spine and he looked with dread at the seemingly oblivious man. He couldn’t mean for him to be Stark’s babysitter, did he? Because any claims that a job involving an edgy teenager could even remotely be described as mere bodyguard duty was a terrible, vicious lie!  
  
The thought haunted him over the entire first serving. And the second serving. Up until Quill elder apparently judged the hunger well enough sated that conversation could start flowing properly. Not that there hadn’t been small talk until that point, but it had been precisely as awkward as one would expect when three different groups of unacquainted people were involved. Still, they got the basics out of the way at least. Names, likes, dislikes, hobbies, that sort of thing. Rogue’s face when he confessed to being partial to kirigami was a particularly crisp highlight, at least once he explained how it was different from origami. He wondered what she’d say if he confessed to once having enjoyed Shodo, of all things. Probably call bullshit.  
  
Which was fair.  
  
“I believe you all have suspicions and expectations of varying accuracy as to why I have invited you all here,” Jason Quill finally said. “Much as I like to see these things borne with such grace, this is as good a time as any to settle them. Antonios. I trust you are amenable to my request now.”  
  
Tony Stark treated Jason Quill to the dirtiest look Logan had seen him produce, but… “Well, you asked for it,” rich boy said. “This is a second-rate RPG dream.” He really wanted to be uncooperative, didn’t he? Except that, when nothing but expectant calm met that statement, Sark continued. Seemed to gain quite a bit of confidence too. “I’m not _entirely_ sure what I’m doing here, seeing as you didn’t exactly plan on my presence.” Wait, really? “But everyone else? It basically reads like a high fantasy roster. The local hedge witch with a quest hook. The intrepid adventurer that gets pulled in by the former. The pre-emptive strike by an undisclosed antagonistic faction right out the gate. And let’s not forget the running battle of life and death – emphasis on death – that finally disgorges the dramatis personae into the presence of that one, inevitable trope of fantasy everywhere: the _quest giver_. Who so happens to be the head of a secret bloodline of mystery.” Rich boy made sure to gesture as indolently as possible at everyone as he named them. “How am I doing?”  
  
“You forgot the intrepid adventurer’s comedy sidekick,” Richard piped up.  
  
Tony gave him a look of betrayal before sullenly hiding his face in his grape juice cup. “I hate you all.”  
  
“No you do not,” Jason Quill said. “You deflect well, but not well enough. Try again.”  
  
“It’s a war council,” Stark huffed explosively, not quite slamming the cup back down. “Not that anything I’ve seen explains why you even need the help when your daughter and probably wife are bona fide witches, and isn’t your son is literally superman? With dimensional powers on top, because that’s a thing apparently. But okay. Utility is a thing I guess. Immortal healing mutant dude with claws? I can dig it. A pro cage fighter that’s also plugged into the seedy underbelly of America? Sounds like a dream. And look! The femme fatale that can steal your soul with a touch! And she can take all your power, skill and deepest secrets. Bonus! _Who_ you plan to go to war with is what I’m having trouble figuring out. Could be whoever sent that GI Joe, but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that’s your scene. Could be whoever sent those robots, but they seem more the problem of scruffy and lady deathstrike over there than yours. That’s assuming they really are different scenes instead of hats being juggled by the same shadow conspiracy douchebag from psycho city. Or it could be completely unrelated. For all I know, the whole blowout of last night could have been an unfortunate coincidence completely unrelated to whatever quest we’ll be sent on by Chinese Gandalf over there. Or oh, here’s a thought! It could even be some blind eunuch somewhere that spends his time spitting dead eyes at people from the other side of a raven’s asshole while impaled on a tree!”  
  
The last bit was all but snarled in the direction of the raven that, now that Wolverine thought about it, had spent the entirety of lunch staring at rich boy from up on the corner of the roof.  
  
Huh.  
  
“An interesting summation,” Jason Quill said, still calm and relaxed and seeming as though nothing was more important to him than Stark’s thoughts in that moment. “The high fantasy scenario does not hold up because the tropes were entirely incidental and, yes, your presence _was_ entirely unplanned.”  
  
“Well gee, don’t I feel special-“  
  
“But the rest is as accurate as the information available to you could possibly render it.” Jason Quill finished. Then he smiled at Stark. Easy. Approving. Tenderly, even. “Well done.”  
  
Tony Stark boggled at Quill as if he’d just started speaking fishman.  
  
Fortunately for the kid’s insecurities and everyone else’s potential awkwardness, Quill swiftly moved the conversation on. “Anything else?”  
  
Stark snapped his steadily slacking jaw shut and composed himself. Then, to Wolverine’s surprise, he hesitated and answered with a _yes_. “I’ve turned it over in my head a hundred times but I still don’t get what the deal with the books is. I thought it might have been a red herring with how blatant it was, but it’s not, is it?”  
  
Books? What books?  
  
“Ah, that.” Jason Quill nodded thoughtfully. Encouragingly. “It was a spell.”  
  
“Say what?”  
  
Wolverine rapidly had to adjust his focus when it was Rider who interjected instead of Stark.  
  
“Not the books themselves,” Quill reassured them both. “Rather, the contents described a spell’s working.”  
  
“What…?” Stark said, and Wolverine had to suppress a cringe. Incomprehension really shouldn’t look that unnatural. On _anyone_. “But they’re _history_ books! Aren’t they?”  
  
“They are. Completely. But they do chronicle a spell as well. A grand, ambitious and presumptuous ritual that thankfully failed. Before I explain, though, I think I will let the Ancient One speak.”  
  
“Modern civilization is not the first time mankind has emerged preeminent on this world,” the wizard began without preamble as if that wasn’t an earth-shattering revelation you should build up to. “There are people, tribes, nations and splinter lines of man that lived and died off, while others spent little to none of their history on this world before choice or circumstance made them give way to what came after, one way or another. Some even survived to rebuild elsewhere later on. Our iteration of human civilization began mere 20,000 years ago, but is in fact a regression of the leftover remnants of those who lived before the great cataclysm. Prior to that was the age of Thuria, when Terra was still one great landmass dotted by many civilizations. Some were primitive barbarians, while others advanced in some or all ways to the same point or beyond that of today. 80,000 years before that was the age of the so-called first men, which many mythologies of the current day describe as being the start of mankind. But even that was not the first chapter of Terran civilization, or even the first chapter of _human_ existence all told. The Age of Men was preceded by the Age of Dragons, and it was only called that because the people of Lemuria and Hyperborea had dragons ruling over them for night on 400,000 years. But even the dragons cannot claim primogeniture, for they themselves ruled but degenerate remains of the seven empires of the Elder Days. That was when the Elder Race of Man truly first came to be, eventually giving rise to the mightiest of wizards that have seldom been equalled and never surpassed since. Some of them _became_ the six dragon emperors that ruled later, via spellwork, alchemy or contact with eldritch beings like the Many-Angled Ones.”  
  
“Many off-shoot human lineages came to be over these many thousands of centuries, through various plots and mishaps. Not the least of which being the involvement of the Celestials, at whose feet lie almost every world-changing catastrophe and mass extinction event. Mu. Lemuria. Atlantis. Atillan. Some of these off-shot people were beastly like the Serpent- and Wolf-Men. Some were no different from various groups today. Some were so advanced and mighty that they built floating islands from which they ruled over all of the others. And some became so learned and mighty that mythology warped them into the primordial deities deposed and replaced by the pantheons you know. I could speak for months on the history unknown outside the occult to all but the most blessed of archaeologists and palaeontologists. However, that all is extraneous to present concerns.”  
  
Logan looked flatly at the man who’d just upended all his understanding of history. Sure, he didn’t much _care_ about any of it, but it was the principle of the thing. And for certain people other than him, it was a _lot_ more than just the principle of the thing. He barely had any thought to spare for Meredith and Meredith, who’d taken the time while the wizard was talking to start packing the leftovers to go.  
  
“That’s nice and soul-shattering, Pallandor,” Tony Stark said with blitheness that was painfully forced. “But maybe some of us are pathologically incapable of swallowing down unverified trivia.”  
  
The Wizard opened a small portal, reached through, and pulled out a tome which looked like it should be a _lot_ more massive than it was. “ _The True History_ , by Johannes Trithemius, translated by Sir Roger Bacon. It has been shrunk down to size, but the lettering should still be visible to eyes as young as yours.”  
  
Rich boy blinked but accepted the levitated book. “I’ll expect further corroboration.” He then opened it and began to read immediately, waving vaguely back at the man. “Continue.”  
  
“Continue _please_ ,” Jason Quill said with surprising curtness.  
  
Stark looked up, surprised.  
  
“Decorum, boy. Especially when you’re in someone else’s house. Even if you do not care about how your actions reflect on me, you are being humoured by one vastly more learned, wise and exalted than you. You will show respect.”  
  
For a wonder, rich boy didn’t give any backtalk. “Right, sorry. I was just-“  
  
“Flimsy self-justification not included.”  
  
“… I apologise. Please continue, sir.”  
  
He sounded almost like a robot by the end, but Jason Quill nodded and relented on his scrutiny. “Better. Please proceed, honoured teacher.”  
  
So he _was_ the teacher in that relationship. Despite everything, Logan hadn’t been sure. Could Yao also resurrect people then? Or was that like a personal gimmick or something?  
  
“A great part of my purpose is to stand guard against the malignant entities and powers that people served throughout history. Or, rather, it _was_ before I passed on the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme. I did so because of the approach required to ward against extradimensional creatures inimical to man: this approach is _not_ ideal to managing the threats that people _became_ throughout history. Or, in increasingly many cases, they _could_ become. The future may not be fixed, but possible futures cast a shadow on the present. The more likely, the clearer the shadow. I have a considerable skill in the practice of divination, which renders me particularly well suited to looking ahead and pre-empting unfortunate situations. Accidents. Abuse. Murder. Assassination. Ill-thought rituals that set a needlessly hard path ahead of one of the most potentially impactful heroines of the new age.”  
  
“So _that’s_ why!” Rogue exclaimed when the wizard nodded meaningfully in her direction. “Ma and Pa did say you’d kinda come outta nowhere. Well, whatever the reason I ain’t about to complain. Those other ways my life coulda gone don’t sound lovely at all.”  
  
Wolverine might have had something to say about that, if the wizard’s MO was any less ‘pre-emptively help’ and more ‘pre-emptively murder.’  
  
“How good is your track record?” Richard Rider asked. He didn’t speak much, Logan noted. But he definitely seemed to be paying attention.  
  
“I will not claim perfection. Once in a few red moons I might misjudge, though I always deal with the consequences after. Sometimes, however, events align such that I cannot intervene everywhere I ideally should. Even if I delegate. At times that is not an option at all, so I must choose who I can help at all. Most recently I could perhaps have saved the life of the potentially most brilliant mind of the age, his future wife, their friends, and the man who’d almost inevitably ride his all too justified ego down the river of jealousy to become their ultimate nemesis.” Yao nodded In Peter Quill’s direction then. “I chose you instead.”  
  
For a moment, everyone was stumped. Then something seemed to dawn on Peter Quill and he gaped. “Reed Richard’s _dead_?”  
  
Eh?  
  
“Dude, the rocket mis-launch was all the news back in November, what rock have you been living under?” Stark asked, having looked up from the book he was already half-way through. Then the topic seemed to catch up with him. “Wait, hold on, back up a minute here. You could’ve saved Richards? Didn’t his rocket blow up well after take-off?”  
  
“It was sabotage. I was otherwise preoccupied. Yes.”  
  
“Wha-Reed Richards was murdered too!? Is anyone _not_ getting murdered anymore?!”  
  
“You chose me over Reed Richards?” Peter Quill balked as Stark gaped in outraged confusion. “Over the _Fantastic Four_?”  
  
Fantastic what now?  
  
“Unequalled genius and powers mischanneled to the point of irrelevance. Or an average life turned cosmically germane through grit, sagacity and nothing else. When circumstances aligned to give you a chance to grasp true _power_ , what other choice could I have made?”  
  
Logan couldn’t help the feeling that he was missing something. A huge something. To the point he was surprised rich boy or Rider didn’t say anything more of their own.  
  
“But…” Peter Quill sputtered, dumbfounded. “ _Reed Richards_.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
It was quite the thing, to see such a stunned look on the face of the one guy there most likely to be able to break everyone else like a twig.  
  
At once.  
  
Notwithstanding whatever Quill elder could do or couldn’t. Logan was still pretty iffy on that.  
  
“Okay,” Stark said a short while later. He’d finished the book in the meanwhile. Huh. “I’ll… not think about any of that for a while. Oh and here, pretty woman, pass this to Richard will you?” Stark gave Rogue the finished book.  
  
“Sure thing, sugar,” she said with all the relief of someone who’d been spared the job of having to dispel the awkwardness herself. She handed the tome to Wolverine to pass on.  
  
It smelled of old leather, paper and no traces of rich boy at all.  
  
Rider took it, turned it between his hands with a strangely absentminded-looking focus – did he lose his overall sheen for a moment there? – then he handed it back to the wizard to portal back to wherever it came from.  
  
“Whoa…” Peter Quill finally said. He seemed to just barely remember he didn’t have a backrest to fall back against. “Okay… My mind is officially blown.”  
  
“Unfortunately, your doubtlessly grand impact on the cosmos may yet be curtailed.” The wizard said as if the break in the conversation had never happened. He traced a circle on the table. A foot-tall illusion of a massive, muscular, purple man with a scrotum chin and an armored bodysuit shimmered into view in the middle of the late buffet. “This is Thanos, of the godlike Eternals that inspired the Greek Mythology of old, up until their civil war in the year 1,000 of the New Reckoning, when Thanos used the distraction of the conflict to build a psy-arcano superweapon that killed them all to the last cell.”  
  
James Howlett had to take a few moments to marvel at the preposterous turn his life had taken. So preposterous that he couldn’t fathom it happening to the him of yesterday morning, when most he had to worry about was getting gunned around by flying killer robot from out West.  
  
“Until recently, all was in place for me to die against him this Summer Solstice.” The wizard said as if there was nothing alarming in that easy statement. “I have since been strongly advised to seek alternatives.”  
  
The sun was out. The wind was calm. Life was hard. Meredith Quill took his plate and walked off while Meredith Quill refilled his beer tankard.  
  
Fuck.  
  
He needed a cigar.

“-. 16 April, 1989 .-“

Soon after, lunch ended, the yard was cleaned up, people were phoned or portalled to wherever they needed to settle any ‘last will and testament,’ and a case of cubans stood open in front of his eyes. Wolverine stared at them. Then looked up at Meredth the Elder. Which was a weird thing to call her when she barely looked over 35, but whatever.  
  
She smiled grandmotherly. “You broadcast. Loudly.”  
  
“… Yeah, sure.” He took one, bit the end off, lit it with granny goodness’ lighter and took a long drag. “Okay. Right. I’m good now.”  
  
“I’ll have what he’s having,” Rider said as Logan savoured the second drag. He stood leaning against the patio railing just a few feet away from where Wolverine sat down on the steps.  
  
“Of course! Here you go.”  
  
“1968 vintage Punch Néctares No. 4,” Jason Quill said grandly from his lawn chair. “Not the strongest, but smooth and creamy as all get out.” He snapped his fingers and a one jumped from the case into his hand. “Pulmonary healthcare supplied in-house of course. I do suggest you take advantage of it whatever else you decide today.”  
  
Well wasn’t that nice. Not that he needed it, but Rider couldn’t say the same.  
  
Probably.  
  
“Are you sure you don’t have last stops to make?” Quill asked him after the first puff. “Roanoke? Cold Lake? Jasmine Falls maybe?”  
  
Logan eyed the guy warily. “Not unless my job needs a black ops conspiracy, my family drama or an evil sword to go.” And that’s as much as he was willing to say in unfamiliar company. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you never actually _saying_ what jobs you want me for.” He’d only just realised it, but-  
  
“Oh I don’t have anything lined up for you at all,” Quill said shamelessly. “But I doubt you’d let us have Miss D’Acanto without a chaperone.”  
  
“Don’t diss the Wolverine,” Rogue said from behind the man as she sauntered back from the refreshments table with a hot chocolate. “He’s the best meatshield you’ll ever find.”  
  
“Most staying power maybe,” Rider mused. “Not the best thing to hide behind, though, when you’re being rained on with bullet bursts, plasma or kinemassic rounds. Probably not too bad against lasers though.”  
  
And he was qualified to give an opinion on all that how?  
  
“Not very tall for a human shield either,” Yao said from his own lawnchair. He was having tea. He addressed Rogue then. “If only you had control over your animavore ability, you could permanently replicate his power now. As it is, you’ll need to hone it quickly because it will _not_ be the priority once events approach conclusion. Getting close to the Deviant without flight or some other form of enhanced mobility is borderline impossible even with major distractions.”  
  
“Y’all could ask me to try though, and I’d probably do it just for the chance to get control over this power o’ mine.” Rogue said seriously and no, girl, don’t give away how far you’re willing to go from the start. “Can’t imagine things’ll turn out much better if I just turn into big bad purple guy v. 2 though.”  
  
“I am confident in my ability to oust him from any disputed body,” Yao said. Strangely, Wolverine believed him. “I could even attempt it against him directly, but he would be able to divine the source and initiate a physical confrontation. His own magical skills are not inconsiderable. He would need to be _extremely_ occupied for such a plan to be worth attempting.”  
  
“Don’t think you can beat him?” Rider asked.  
  
“There is no one alive now that can. Not without help.”  
  
Wolverine sat up and clenched his teeth around the cigar. “Not even superboy? Where even is he, anyway?  
  
“He’s bringing our ride over.” Quill grimaced then. “And as far as gods go, Peter’s still a baby. I’m sure he’d do at least 200% more than his best, but that’s still worse odds than him defeating a cosmically empowered genocidal maniac through a surprise dance off.”  
  
“You don’t say.” How suspiciously specific Quill was even when speaking inanities and wait, Quill junior was a god!? Is he supposed to believe that?  
  
Oh well, not like Wolverine had any wiggle room here. Not when Rogue had already gone all-in on the effort to stop whatever genocidal maniac it was that they’d never heard even a whiff of. Then again, it’s not like having bled on the same ground had prompted Chuck to tell them about Magneto before they bumped into him the first time, so eh... “So Rogue. How’d it go with the folks?”  
  
As it turned out Rogue’s parents had barely needed ten minutes’ worth of convincing before they capitulated to her wishes that they don’t pry more into… whatever it was that made potential last goodbyes a thing. Not that they still had the authority they’d’ve needed to forbid her from doing whatever she wanted. She was a grownup and everything. Still, she liked to be on the same page with them as much as possible. And if it hadn’t backfired yet, it wasn’t likely to in the future. Wolverine rather thought that the D’Acanto’s past brush with terminal parenting failure was what made them so willing to trust their daughter’s judgment over their own. At least with regards to her own life’s choices, once she reached adulthood. A bit too willing, maybe. Then again, that could just be what good parenting was like? At least the letting go part.  
  
The sound of the back door opening and closing reached Wolverine’s ears, along with soft footsteps and then a sort of rustling thud right after.  
  
“Well, call me when god boy gets here with whatever,” Logan stood up, flicked the ash off the cigar tip and headed off. “I’ll be in that there hammock.”  
  
He caught Quill elder giving him a knowing look as he rose from his own chair, but he pretended not to see it. Until he actually _said_ something, Wolverine was more than willing to push the bounds of hospitality in this particular way.  
  
As he’d expected, the hammock – hung between a plum and cherry tree – put him in the perfect spot to hear everything happening at the back of the house. He hopped in and got a good ‘nothing happening with this here totally dozing off person’ sway going just as Jason Quill emerged through the back door and sat down next to Tony Stark on edge of the porch.  
  
“Do you resent me?”  
  
“For splitting me and Richard up? For putting me on the spot? For emotionally blackmailing my dad into _selling me off_?”  
  
“For believing in you.”  
  
Logan suddenly had to contend with the rare experience of being impressed. Quill sounded like he actually meant it 100%.  
  
Stark, though, was sputtering. He could hear it from there. “Oh you’re so full of shit!”  
  
“Says the kid who literally personifies the road to hell paved with good intentions. You stumbled into a black ops surveillance operation because you wanted the last word like a 5-year-old. You then crashed like a runaway train into my business and that of everyone else. And now I find myself compelled to take you on as my latest project because the degree to which you’re _going to waste_ absolutely offends me.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“Incidentally, you also haven’t the first clue how to find a woman that might motivate you into fixing any of the aforementioned, instead of just boxing you into more of the same. Men put themselves on display. Women are the ones who offer themselves and compete for our attention. It’s simple biology. There’s fewer of us men and limited resources to go around.”  
  
“Oh screw you, now I know you’re full of shit! Want me to describe all my dates? I can do it right now. Do you have the next five hours free?”  
  
“So you’re a prostitute.”  
  
Logan almost choked on his own smoke.  
  
“Or were they? I suppose it’s far from impossible. If they valued themselves any, they’d have saved themselves for their eventual life partners. But they had one-night stands with you, so they were obviously easy women. Did they at least value their bodies enough to ask for compensation of some sort? And how young even were you when you started letting gold diggers into your bed? Unless you were making liberal use of hyperbole when you described the extent of your experience just now? I sincerely hope that’s the case, for the sake of your self-esteem if nothing else. Such as it is.”  
  
The outraged disbelief was ever starker, if that was possible. Word-stealing.  
  
“Should I start guessing?”  
  
“Right. I’m out.”  
  
Abrupt rustles of clothing. Stomps on wooden stairs. Angry footsteps on the grass.  
  
“The first proactive action of your life isn’t what killed you,” Quill said out of nowhere, bringing Stark to a halt. Logan could see him now, seething with anger and shame and humiliation. “It’s what spared everyone else from the same. Exactly as you intended. You did well. But you still fear independent action. That will very seldom do you any good. Think how easily you capitulated to my dismissal of your misgivings earlier. Look at how easily you’ve let your emotions lead you by the nose just now. Let this be your first lesson: get a hold of yourself and _act,_ instead of _re_ acting to everything happening around you.”  
  
There was no reply. Wolverine waited and watched the kid and even caught the scent of fresh smoke being exhaled. Still no reply came. But Quill was a grownup who’d achieved enlightenment while Sark was an edgy teenager with issues piled high enough to outweigh the White House.  
  
There was no question as to who would break first.  
  
“… Screw you.”  
  
“Not an argument.”  
  
“Well that’s fine because I’m not getting into an argument with you!”  
  
“Of course not. You’d lose badly.”  
  
“For fuck’s sake!” Stark _shrieked_ , whirling on his feet and stomping back behind the house and out of sight in a fit. “Are you _trying_ to be an asshole? What’s your problem? What even is your game?”  
  
“I don’t play games with the lives of other,” Quill said mildly.  
  
“The hell you don’t, who was it that just gloated over playing me like a fiddle? Congratulations by the way. I’m sure it feels utterly validating.”  
  
“I’m acting in loco parentis for a man who never allowed you to engage him any other way than through authority-challenging belligerence,” Quill said. “I have to work with what I’m given, no matter how much look forward to the day when I can speak and relate to you and dote on you like you deserve.”  
  
Wolverine wondered what look that put on rich boy’s face. He’d seen more complicated looks than the one he was imagining, but not on a teenager.  
  
He didn’t get an answer. Mostly because Stark was lost for words again.  
  
Eventually, Quill spoke once more. “I have taken you as my foster ward. The customs of my people are clear. Other that than my wife and children, there is now nothing more important to me than you.”  
  
“That-“ Logan could almost feel the disbelief all the way over there. “You can’t just decide something like that!”  
  
“Of course I can, my boy. It’s called conviction. Something you too will need to find, before you can be acknowledged at last as a man.”  
  
“Yeah, well… I already am one, thank you very much.”  
  
“You do not think for yourself unless prompted. You have not even begun to define your life instead of others doing it for you. You have carved no place of your own in the world. You’ve passed no trials that didn’t kill you first. You are not a man at all.”  
  
Whoa. That was even harsher than all the other stuff.  
  
“This all remains the case even after you _died_ , boy. One would think you’d be more amenable to introspection after going through something like that.”  
  
“Oh screw you! You have no _idea_ what I’m going through.”  
  
“Ah, the woebegone child who thinks it’s somehow a bad thing that the average man lacks trauma and is therefore actually qualified to give good life advice.”  
  
That took even Logan aback. He’d never thought about it like that.  
  
“… What do you want from me?” Stark asked. He sounded so tired now.  
  
“I will say some things and ask some things. I want you to refrain from answering in favour of _thinking_ about them. At length. Can you do that?”  
  
Wolverine wondered if _without Richard Rider propping you up_ sounded as loud and clear to Stark as it did to him.  
  
“… I’m not promising anything.”  
  
“So you don’t have even what little dregs of conviction it takes to politely listen to another person?”  
  
Translation: so you _are_ an ingrate and a coward.  
  
“That’s not what I- Oh for… Fine! I’ll listen.”  
  
“Good. I am willing to coddle you for a time because of your recent experiences, but you are on the cusp of adulthood and a genius besides. You are capable of _far_ better than this.”  
  
He sounded like he meant it too. Logan wasn’t sure _how_ he meant it, but he truly meant it. Some way or other.  
  
Tapping on wood. Silence. More silence. Feet dragging across the grass. Footsteps on stairs. Silence again. The faint thump amidst rustling clothing.  
  
Whoa. Had rich boy really agreed to sit back down on the stairs next to the man? Huh. He had to have been _really_ conflicted over whether he should be insulted or flattered by that last bit.  
  
What Quill said next wasn’t as encouraging though. At all.  
  
“I see several paths before you. For one, you can go back home. Right now, if you wish,” Jason Quill said. “I wouldn’t even stop you. But what do you think will happen? Your father will sideline you again, which you won’t be able to suffer after what happened to you. Especially knowing what you know now. My son and daughter are the only reason you didn’t get your father and friend killed, and even their presence wasn’t enough to prevent _you_ from suffering that fate yourself. So, my first question: do you really care about the near certainty of being abducted – or murdered – less than you care about shoving it to your old man?”  
  
Stark didn’t reply. It seems he _did_ have at least that much conviction.  
  
“Second, you can indulge the possibility that your father might have finally done right by you when he gave you to me. In which case I can give you more opportunities, resources and responsibilities than you’ve ever craved in your life. I can’t prove my intentions to you now and here. That will come with time and action. But I wager I only need one minute to prove I have the means to live up to my words and then some. I can’t imagine you need more, do you? A smart boy like you is sure to exploit the situation for your benefit whatever my plans might be, no?”  
  
Stark managed not to spit something back this time as well. Wolverine grimaced. This eavesdropping had gone way past vetting at this point.  
  
“Third, you could leave but not go back home. Set off on your own. In which case, I can’t speculate on the risk versus reward ratio any better than you can. What I do know is you won’t be getting a clean slate. You’re very recognisable to the wrong people, and while you’ve slummed enough to make do, I can’t see you having the restraint to keep your head down for more than a week. Finally, you probably won’t have Mr. Rider to rely on. He’s already pledged his support to our mission. Can you handle that? _Should_ you? Reed Richards and the rest all died despite having more and better means than you would have in this situation, no?”  
  
Wolverine wondered what image they made, a man sitting and smoking while a teenager sullenly sat next to him on the porch.  
  
Smoke rings and other figures floated up and away around the house corner.  
  
Well, that answered that question.  
  
Logan heard Quill shift in place but not rise. “You have as much time as you need to think about it. I am willing to provide clarification, however. Starting now.”  
  
“You mean you’ll make me talk myself in circles again while you emotionally manipulate me some more?” Stark asked sullenly.  
  
“Not manipulating. I capitalised on a situation for your benefit and mine. I am _educating_ you. It cannot be manipulation if I am upfront about my aims from the start.”  
  
“Are you satisfied?”  
  
“URHK-!” Logan _did_ choke on his own smoke this time. He managed to avoid outright falling out of the hammock, but it was a close thing.  
  
“Dad’s a pretty easy-going guy when it comes to people who don’t _actively_ set out to wrong him and his,” Peter Quill said from right next to the hammock. Wolverine hadn’t detected him at all. “But there comes a point where even plausible deniability starts stretching the bounds of shame. Wouldn’t you agree?”  
  
Logan hopped out of the hammock. He couldn’t hear anything from the direction of the back yard anymore. Crap. “… I plead the fifth.”  
  
“Are you even a US citizen?”  
  
“Technically…” He’d been issued with a certificate as part of his Weapon X career. Once or twice. A lifetime ago.  
  
“Well, it won’t matter where we’re going anyway,” Quill the Younger motioned to the front lawn. “After you.”  
  
“Sure.” What was he supposed to do, say no?  
  
They got back to the rest of the group just as Yao was finishing explaining something or other to Rogue.  
  
“-is exceedingly powerful even without his auric manipulation abilities. _With_ them he is all but invincible, by most metrics.”  
  
“The more you tell me, the less I think my power’ll work on ‘im at all,” Rogue asked. “Won’t he just no sell it? The miss and missus can do it.”  
  
“That is pure skill levied against your total lack of such. What Thanos has an abundance of is natural _ability_ , one that has only been boosted by exposure to a substance known as Terrigen Mist. He has honed it thoroughly, true. But if he had performed any of the introspection that is a pre-requisite for that sort of self-mastery, odds are he would not be our enemy at all.”  
  
“Well, if you’re sure.”  
  
“Your power could probably affect deities,” Yao dryly told Rogue and wait, really? Also, gods were real? Not just exaggeration to sell power levels? “Mutant powers are essentially hardcoded spells, except often at what would be the sort of superlative level of mastery that would take mystics a lifetime to attain. Do not worry about it failing. Focus on being able to _choose_ whether you eat the other being’s soul or not.”  
  
“Is that really what I do?”  
  
“Yes,” Yao said, not unkindly. “But you’ve already seen the alternative, when my daughter interceded to overlap your soul over Mr. Rider’s without any displacement or loss on the latter’s part. I am confident we can teach you to do so on your own.”  
  
“Basically just worry about getting within arm’s reach without being disintegrated,” Peter Quill said blithely as they reached them. “Which will probably be my job, come to think of it. Unless I’m right and we _are_ overestimating the lunatic. But what are the odds of that? It’s not like we have first-hand information on his combat capabilities or anything.”  
  
Oho? Had they stumbled upon an internal dispute?  
  
“That information is outdated, as you know.”  
  
“Sounds like something we should know anyway,” Rider said from where he was puffing his cigar, sitting in the spot Logan had used before he went snooping.  
  
Yao pondered them, then surprised them by obliging the man. “There have only been a handful of times when the Mad Titan suffered a true setback. Most recently, a ritual was set up using an artefact made from the remnants of a singularity that predates existence as you know it today.” Can I have another whoa there, Nelly? “Through the ultimate sacrifice of a powerful mystic, a ritual was activated that essentially ripped the titan’s astral body out of him – his soul for all intents and purposes – and bestowed it on someone chosen for being his diametrical opposite in almost every way. It robbed him of most of his power and left his mind in a vegetative state, though the latter was wholly owed to a last offensive by the mystic in question. The effect was not unlike that of miss D’Acanto’s power, though not as cleanly done. The only reason the creature was able to become a threat again is because he’d succeeded in achieving his own prime objective at the time – attaining a sister artefact to the one leveraged thusly. His cultists were eventually able to use it to confect a new personality for him. Fortunately, it did not restore his lost power. Not so fortunately, the new him was still supremely strong, almost as clever and twice as rational despite having the same mad objectives. ”  
  
“You’ve got to be joking,” Peter Quill balked. It was so surprising that Logan almost dropped his cigar from his mouth. Almost. “Is that where Da- that _woman_ ’ _s_ ridiculous powers came from?”  
  
Eh? “Do you _have_ to be so deliberately obtuse?” Logan groused. Also, when did this happen for Quill the Younger to talk as if from personal experience?  
  
“Any information told is information that can be divined,” Yao replied apologetically. “I am already risking much, even with the protections enveiling this property.”  
  
“You know this explains a lot,” Peter said, astounded. “Hell, it explain _everything_. I always did think she’d been too irrelevant for someone who was basically a god. Like she may as well not even existed until Thanos finally got off his ass and started doing things. At least until the end there when she came out of nowhere. And then she just went and put out fires instead of actually making any lasting contributions to… well, anything. Though I guess I’m not one to judge. Turns out she was just being mind-whammied by the oversized ego of purple scrotum chin.”  
  
“Not at all,” Yao said as if the rest of them were supposed to make any heads or tails of what they were saying. “His consciousness was eradicated _before_ the anima transfer.”  
  
“Wait, really? Then why…?”  
  
“I did say his opposite in all ways,” the wizard patiently ‘explained’. “For all his obsession and evil, the Mad Titan is the most intelligent and talented specimen that his species ever produced. He is also cunning and among the most charismatic. A force that influences and drives events big and small wherever he goes. Now, at least.”  
  
“As opposed to someone driven entirely by the influence of other people towards the goals least suited to her abilities and talents, not to mention less charisma than a flying brick,” Peter said thoughtfully. “And when she finally got everything they made her want, she just fucked off someplace on the basis of the first unverified sob story she happened upon. It really never even occurred to her that she could have established a new world order, did it? Hell, she could literally have set herself up as a goddess. Instead she went around… playing babysitter.”  
  
“She is not the first nor the last person to choose immediate gratification over long-term accomplishment,” Yao said dismissively. “The mystic also wanted to make sure that power went to someone who would not misuse it. But since he was in no position to supervise the subject of such a plan…”  
  
“He went with someone who wouldn’t use those powers at all. At least, not for anything meaningful.”  
  
Peter and Yao exchanged a strange look then, and the former suddenly looked wary of the latter.  
  
The words ‘lacking context’ could have been spray-painted on their faces and still wouldn’t have made a difference to the atmosphere. Or anyone else’s comprehension. Lack thereof really. At least, that’s what Logan guessed. He couldn’t smell their emotions like he did other people. He hadn’t realised how much he relied on it.  
  
The discussion trailed off at that point. Logan eventually settled down on the lower steps and watched as Meredith the older engaged Rogue in a preparatory lesson on astral plane mechanics while they waited for Quill and Stark to finally return to the fold. They didn’t go through much, but Logan did learn how Meredith the younger had managed to negate her power. She “contracted her astral body until even skin contact didn’t reach it” apparently. Which was easier to do but harder to maintain than it sounded. As for why Rider hadn’t collapsed from her touch the prior night, it was because the witch had made herself a lever and stopped Rogue’s soul at “overshadowing” instead of letting her go all the way to “soul eating.”  
  
Rider made a rather weird face at that. As if he were dubious about the eventual results even if he wasn’t at all dubious of the claims themselves. Wolverine was pretty sure of that because he _could_ smell his emotions, unlike the Quill men and the wizard.  
  
Come to think of it, why was the guy even there again?  
  
Finally, though, he could hear Quill and Stark again. Coming over. From inside the house. “-ssume it’s because Howard stark had an overbearing father and overreacted.”  
  
“Overreacted?” Stark muttered in disbelief.  
  
“It’s not impossible that he refrained from reciprocal paternal interaction out of malice, but he was ready to sell me his soul for you, so I doubt it.” And he sounded so nonchalant about it too, the scary weirdo. “Never ascribe to malice what can be explained through mere stupidity.”  
  
“The saying also says not to rule out malice,” Stark muttered.  
  
“Do I sound like I am?”  
  
“…No.”  
  
“I’m glad we agree. Are you ready to rejoin the others?”  
  
“I was born ready.”  
  
“You were born dirty, stupid and helpless like every other person out there.”  
  
“You take that back! I was born beautiful, brilliant and perfect.”  
  
“That would mean I accept this is as far as you can go.”  
  
“And what if it is?”  
  
“I don’t believe that.”  
  
“And why not?”  
  
“Because I believe you can be magnificent.”  
  
Quill really had no shame, did he? Even when he was being kind.  
  
“… I already am magnificent, thank you very much.”  
  
“No you’re not. And not ready to be either, if you think you’ve already achieve the highlight of your existence. But that’s alright. We’ll work on it together.”  
  
The door opened and closed behind them and, finally, the strange group was once more gathered together.  
  
“Richard, save me from the forces of ego!” Stark cried, collapsing dramatically all over the man’s side. “I’ll have one of those cubans too now, thanks.”  
  
“No.” Jason, Meredith and Meredith said at once.  
  
“But that’s tyranny!” Rich boy squawked as Rider held his out of his reach.  
  
“I am willing to pay the price you will exact on my nerves for disallowing you this indulgence,” Jason Quill said mildly as he walked past them all. “Are you willing to pay _my_ price for matching rules with belligerence on such a minor thing?”  
  
“… You’re horrible,” Stark groused. But did _not_ push.  
  
So this is what even the barest of acknowledgment gets you as a dad, Wolverine thought. Instant compliance.  
  
To their surprise, Quill elder returned to the table they’d eaten from. To their continued surprise, he opened a small portal and reached inside. And to their even bigger surprise, he then motioned for an even bigger portal to open on the surface of the ground right at this feet, which he crouched and reached deep into. “Before we go, there’s onnnne last thing!” He harruphed, hauling out and dumping a large, locked chest on the tabletop with a huff, puff and thunk.  
  
Then he opened it and started pulling out varyingly-sized gold bars. And silver bars. And platinum bars. And more of the same and things he couldn’t guess at what they were made of.  
  
Wolverine’s jaw dropped. He wasn’t the only one. His eyes only went wider as the bars of precious metal just kept coming.  
  
“Richard Rider: standard bodyguard one-month advance pay, one overnight security shift at regular rate plus incident bonus for the other night, 50% advance on high-risk combat mission and advance on consultancy retainer.” The main laid out three gold bars of different weights, one platinum bar and another bar of… something. “Anna-Marie D’Acanto: one overnight security shift at regular rate plus incident bonus, 50% advance fee on extreme-risk combat mission and one-month advance retainer fee, minus teaching and training fees.” Two gold bars of middling size and one platinum clinked in place in front of the young woman. “And finally, James Logan Howlett. Let’s see, that’ll be the same standard bodyguard one-month advance pay, overnight security shift at regular rate plus incident bonus, and the combat mission advance fee – except we’ll go with moderate risk considering your special advantages. But you’ve been stretching the bounds of hospitality by spying on us, so that’s one penalty coming out of the total. On the other hand, your retainer fee needs to be higher due to your extra talents in spycraft, tracking and surveillance, so it more or less evens out. Provided you cease taking advantage of my hospitality of course.” The man laid out the same amount as for Rogue and gave him a meaningful look. “Are we in agreement?”  
  
“… Yeah sure,” Logan said, throat dry at the sight of more wealth he’d ever seen in his life.  
  
“Do we get insurance?” Rider asked.  
  
Wolverine’s head snapped in his direction. He’d sounded entirely serious. As if nothing that just happened had surprised him at all.  
  
“Yes,” Quill answered just as casually.  
  
“Standard rates?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Physical? Animistic? Dental?”  
  
“Except for the time leading up to now, when you weren’t technically on my payroll.”  
  
“Payment plan?”  
  
“I’ll take it out of your dividend.”  
  
Rider nodded in their direction as if to say ‘it’s legit’ and proceeded to assure them of the fairness of the offer as if they weren’t all still stuck at ‘holy shit, that’s real gold!’ “My information on exchange rates is somewhat outdated but the quantities are fair from what I can see.”  
  
Because he somehow knows enough to judge and how the hell was he holding such a straight face!?  
  
“On our return I will see to it that your pay is converted into something useable locally,” Quill said as if he hadn’t just produced more precious metal from a chest that held more than was available in some banks.  
  
“Fair,” Rider nodded. “I’m reserving the right to renegotiate the fees in a month’s time though. Also, I’ll want half of this converted to units as soon as possible.”  
  
Units? Of what? How much was a unit?  
  
“What the hell is even going on anymore!?” Stark finally exploded, having stared agape between Quill and Rider until that point. “Richard, please understand when I say _what the fuck_. And you!” Rich Boy rounded on the man of the house, only to falter. Possibly at the recent memory of the _last_ time he tried to challenge him in any way. “…We’re getting paid?”  
  
“They are. You aren’t.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You’re not an employee, my boy. You’re my ward. You’ll be getting an allowance. But I’ll need to get personally familiar with you, your talents and your hobbies before I figure out how big it’s going to be.”  
  
That was _not_ what any of them were sputtering about but oh, what was even the use at this point?  
  
Stark, shockingly, seemed to agree considering how much he decided _not_ to spazz out over. Not that his eventual choice of topic did him any favours, but what else was new? “Because that’s not manipulative at all.”  
  
“A man gets what he earns when he earns it.”  
  
Stark pulled a face, but seemed to rally. In an attempt to shield himself from further embarrassment, probably. He looked from Quill elder to Younger, who’d been leaning against the porch post and grinning at their faces the whole time. “Fine then. I’ll take whatever he’s getting.”  
  
“Decent attempt at testing boundaries – well done – but a request I’ll have to deny, unless you don’t want an allowance at all.” Jason Quill smirked at Stark’s expense and nodded in his son’s direction. “My son is a man grown. He has already moved out and established his own home and hearth. In fact, he’s the one who’ll be hosting us next.”  
  
“I believe that’s my cue.” Peter Quill said, stepping forward with three very solid-looking briefcases, where Quill Elder proceeded to stash they individual payments. Peter Quill then handed each of them to their rightful recipient. “Please follow me. Our ride is this way.”  
  
‘This way’ proved to mean through the looking glass dimension that the guy cracked a way through with a wave of his hand. Wolverine tried not to look it, but he was probably the most apprehensive of everyone there, seeing as he was the only one who hadn’t been exposed to it yet.  
  
Once he was through, though, all thought of that went out the window because he was too busy staring ahead like a slack-jawed idiot.  
  
As did everyone else.  
  
“Is that a spaceship!?” Rogue clapped her hands and _squealed_.  
  
One the one hand, it hadn’t been Stark again. On the other hand, since when could Rogue even make such a sound? Wolverine was lost for words.  
  
One speechless boarding, tour and flight to orbit later, he was still lost for words. As was everyone else. Unlike Jason Quill, who’d gone on to pilot. Or Meredith the Older, who’d gone to stash the leftover food in the mess. Unlike Meredith the Younger, who would be staying on Earth on account of having a business to run. Among other reasons that weren’t revealed to them for operational security reasons. And _definitely_ unlike Peter Jason Quill, who languidly took a seat in the second-most throne-like chair in the common hold and, after doing something to make it seem like they stood in the middle of outer space – the Earth looked so… so… - began to tell his story.  
  
“Gather ‘round dear mercenaries and I’ll tell you a tale. Imagine for a moment that you’re the god-king of a religion in the early dawn of the latest iteration of human civilization. You’re not particularly clever, creative or experienced, but you are powerful, influential and ambitious. Almost by chance, you luck into the exact chain of assistance, coincidences and power-ups that leave you at the head of an entire pantheon. One who gets to be worshipped by one of the deluvian civilizations with the most gifted antideluvian pedigree. All of you agree that you don’t particularly care about the mortals empowering you with every prayer that crosses their lips. But fortunately, they’re easy to impress and frighten even at the best of times, and before you know it, you’re being hailed as the lord of the heavens and king of all there is in the world. With your keen ability to get the lowly humans to worship and praise you – no matter how many men you kill or cuckold and their wives you rape – you manage to maintain your rule in heaven _and_ extend your influence on your patch of Earth exponentially. Which is basically guaranteed to preserve your existence, power and influence pretty much indefinitely no matter how good or bad you are at your job. This allows you to use and abuse other gods, spirits, people, and even your own children by way of the aforementioned. Even those who are far more capable, competent and creative than yourself. At least in everything but beating up others and causing thunderstorms with every other bellow. Along the way, though, you come upon those that others would call peers, but you only call rivals. Titans. Cyclopses. Hecatoncheires. Even other pantheons of gods. Often it leads to war. Sometimes it leads to peace. Rarely it leads to friendship. And, once in an age’s turn, it leads you to experience that dreaded state that never fails to make you want to destroy the world: _inferiority_.  
  
“The major source of that inferiority complex – which you never acknowledge on pain of another great flood – suddenly starts pulling away from the world one day. Even more alarmingly, the rest of his court and two pantheon’s worth of deities start doing the same immediately after. Knowing it would mean pre-emptive war if it was _you_ doing it, you naturally suspect your ‘rival’ of the same. Even though his interests and followers are half a world away. Intelligence gathering via envoys, spycraft and divination prove your suspicions wrong, however. Unfortunately, rather than glee at one less rival to worry over, you only have your secret inferiority complex further reinforced. It turns out he wasn’t leaving because of diminishing worship or secret thoughts of war. He’d just built a new realm further beyond the stars than even you can fathom. Your tantrum is fit to pop a hole in the atmosphere at the perceived slight, such is the humiliation at learning that you’d never been more than indulged like a child. But any thoughts of retaliating for the slight tastes like dry ash in your mouth. You are the Sky God and hold the Lightning in Your hand, but you are no lord of Nine Realms spanning nine different _galaxies_.  
  
“Eventually, though, you stumble upon some visiting immortals and have an idea. You make a pact with them, these arrogant Eternals, to act as your Earthly representatives. Sure, it backfires spectacularly and ends in the kind of total war that breaks the world, but you were only ever after the secrets of advanced technology anyway. Not that you get them all, or even most. But it’s enough to guide and judge the merits of spacefaring people, and that’s really all you need for your grand plan. See, even if you aren’t as old as the world, or even a tenth as old as your hated rival, you’re still a Skyfather with power and resources at your command. Finding out the history of the earth is easy. Finding out how many cultures existed but _didn’t_ leave behind afterlives is only time-consuming. And figuring which – and the means through which – civilization might have travelled away from Earth throughout the ages proves difficult but ultimately achievable to the underlings available to one such as yourself. So you look for these people. Find them. Judge them. You even mingle with them, for a time. And eventually, you find a people that seem just ripe for the picking. They’re able-bodied enough to make excellent warriors. They’re smart and cunning enough to have already carved out a starfaring empire of their own. But they’re self-absorbed and foolish enough to think they can survive without holding to any gods at all. It doesn’t matter to you that there’s no room in their culture for higher powers that would use and abuse them. It doesn’t matter to you that they’re just the estranged half of a people who spliced their DNA with an alien avian species - in a failed, soul-destroying bid to cut themselves off from gods every bit as terrible as you. It doesn’t matter to you that they’ve had more time than you’ve existed to prove the worth of their belief in self-determination. All you see is your ticket to levelling the playing field and finally sticking it to your senior for the gall of having more important things on his mind than you.”  
  
The view of Earth moved then. Drifted away, through an invisible… ship? Inhabited by green-skinned people with elf ears that Logan would have missed if he had blinked. Soon the Earth was left behind, along with the Moon, then Mars, then the rest of the planets until the ship must have been at the edge of the solar system. Then something like a spiralling gate that was actually a bubble coloured every colour of the rainbow opened up ahead.  
  
The ship plunged in it. Into a tunnel every bit the rainbow it seemed from outside, moving quickly towards some far off destination Wolverine didn’t want to guess at. No matter how many clues he already had.  
  
No matter what further revelations were still being given.  
  
“And so you finally have everything you need. All that’s left is to set up the stage and use a little thing called the _similarity principle_ to cast a mass-dominion spell and burst your way onto the intergalactic scene. And wouldn’t you know it, your war with the Eternals that _you_ called to Earth on false pretenses has already kickstarted that little time in history known as the Bronze Age collapse. It proves to be the perfect opportunity to guide your worshippers to building cities and raising temples and setting trade routes and destroying them only to build them again while waging warfare just the way you want. At first it’s you who has to move the strings of your Earthly puppets in such a way as to mimic what’s going on a galaxy and empty void away. You even manage to leverage this into shaping the culture of the people to reflect the ones you’re aiming to take, with certain modifications to make them more controllable of course. It barely takes half a century before your small demesne mirrors your ultimate prize in every way but scale. You have the board. All that’s left is to insert the players into their requisite spots. On Earth it’s easy – even kings don’t dare complain when you take their wives now. Actually, barely anyone dares say anything but praise when you or someone else from Olympus does something to them. After all the tricks pulled on them, the little mortals have even recreated the other side’s hospitality customs with barely any direct input from you. It’s almost a shame most of them won’t live to enjoy the fruits of it. The reverse side of the board proves more troublesome though. You don’t have the same history of murdered and tortured and transmogrified and mutilated naysayers over in their side of the universe. Fortunately, you’re all dab hands at possession at this point. So when you go and conceive the same sons and daughter with the same names and the _same soul_ to unwittingly live parallel lives on both sides of the board, everything goes just as planned and so you’re good to go.”  
  
The tunnel of light suddenly came to an end. If he’d been sitting down, Logan would have risen from it like everyone else would probably have done at the sight that met them. A galaxy ahead and below them, with letters shimmering into sight above the view. Shi’Ar. M-33. Triangulum Galaxy. The view advanced then, forward and downward. Towards and then through nebulas and stars, until it felt to him like they were literally standing at the foot of the galactic north. Before him was what could well have been the Greek Archipelago, only drawn in worlds, stars and space dust instead of ocean, city-states and land. More names appeared in front of them then. Planets. Systems. Travel routes from one end of the galactic arm to the next. Sparta. Athens. Troy. Many more. And above them all, three names that explained everything about more things than he ever thought he’d wonder about.  
  
Ελλάδα. Hellás. The Aegean Sea.  
  
“Sing, o minstrel, the conceit of Zeus Panhellenios, that brought countless ills upon the Aegeans.” The voice of Jason Quill came then, deep and rumbling behind them. It said all there was to say that no one even twitched away from the sight in front of them. “Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the King of the Gods made decision to relieve the Earth of the burden of Man.”  
  
“You are Zeus, Lord of Olympus, who holds the Lightning in Your Hand,” Peter Quill said, his speech now low and slow as understanding finally dawned on all of them. “You are sure no divine enterprise was ever this ambitious. You doubt there was ever a strategy this grand. You can’t imagine a prize more tantalising. Sure, you’re basically setting out to depopulate the Earth of most of your best followers. But that’s a price you’re more than willing to pay – your ritual isn’t one that can go by without some major blood sacrifice. And if that includes every last one of your and your fellow gods’ own children, well, that’s just good strategy, isn’t it? They’re the only ones who could stand any chance of opposing you after all. It really is a shame that this grand project is all so _distracting_. It doesn’t occur to you that you’re slighting all the other pantheons in your backyard the same way you feel your senior ‘slighted’ you when he went about his business without giving due notice. It doesn’t occur to you that all the measures you took to conceal your plans from other factions might not have been sufficient. It doesn’t occur to you that some of them like, oh, the _Vishanti_ might have become wise to your designs. Most critical of all, you’ve completely overlooked three things. One, the first Eye of Agamotto is not the Eye of Prescience but _Truth_. Secondly, _We do not kneel_. For we are not the conceited, slaving caricatures you built in our inverted image back on Earth so we could easily shatter. And third, the Sorceress Supreme of your time is resourceful, willful, and utterly _hates you_ with the fury of a life ruined and three murdered sons.”  
  
Smoothly but swiftly, the image of the far galaxy faded out, leaving behind the image of high orbit above Earth once again. Except this time, light also came from behind them as well.  
  
Slowly and reluctantly, Wolverine turned to face the increasingly disconcerting son of his latest employer. He found him looking intensely at him and the rest, having been joined by both his mother and father at some point or other. The three now sat on the other side of a much larger projection of a couple he had never seen before.  
  
Peter Quill allowed the illusion of outside to fade, then stood from his chair and gestured imperiously at his father, who sat in _the_ most throne-like chair in the hold. “James Logan Howlett. Anna-Marie D’Acanto. Richard Rider. Be known to J’son, Firstborn Son and Heir by Right of Singular Lineage to Eson, Fifth of His Name, of the Planetary Kingdom of Spartax and of His other Worlds and Territories Emperor, Head of the Spartoi Empire and Defender of the Realm. My father.”  
  
Logan… Logan honestly didn’t have it in him to say anything to that.  
  
Peter then gestured at the hologram. “These are Odysseus of Ithaca and Medea of Colchis, who prevented Zeus’ grand designs from coming to pass during the Trojan War.” The hologram zoomed in then, on the amulet of the woman. It was shaped like an eye. It opened and unfolded to reveal a glowing yellow gem of some kind. “This is the Infinity Stone of Mind, the cosmic embodiment of the concept of intellect. The heirloom and secret weapon of the Spartoi Imperial Family.” The hologram changed for a third time then, into the only thing in his new surroundings that carried any hint of familiarity. “And finally, this is the enemy that will get his hands on it by mid-year unless we stop him. Thanos of Titan, the Moon of Saturn where used to dwell the godlike Eternals until their civil war when he betrayed all of his kind and built, in their distraction, a psy-arcano superweapon that killed them all to the last cell. He has since been on a crusade across the known universe, using patsies, cults, subjugated enemies and former allies-turned-slaves to slaughter half of every species he comes upon. Ostensibly because he is romantically infatuated with the embodiment of death and wants to kill half of life in the universe as a courting gift. In reality, the creature he communes with is but a goddess, albeit one so unhinged and powerful that she has been imprisoned by her own father for many thousands of years. Not too unhinged to prey on a madman’s delusions, however. Nor weak enough that she could not manifest outside her prison via portents, dreams and apparitions. Especially when she genuinely fancies herself to be the facet of reality Thanos so worships more and more with every year that passes. These days she gluts on the blood sacrifice that each and every kill becomes whenever Thanos kills while holding her face in his mind’s eye.”  
  
Wolverine stared blankly at the Titan. And the female figure that shimmered in place next to him just then. That a goddess could qualify as anything ‘mere’ was just one of many surreal elements in the newest episode of his reclaimed life’s story. Almost as surreal as her ridiculous headdress.  
  
Incidentally…  
  
Aliens? Galactic civilizations? Universe-ending threats?  
  
What the everloving fuck?  
  
The hologram winked out.  
  
“We will now take questions.”


End file.
